The Zeta Project Season 3 Episode 6
by clutzattack
Summary: Episode 6
1. Default Chapter

THE ZETA PROJECT****

SEASON THREE

Disclosure: I don't own The Zeta Project. I don't own the characters… I wish I did though… Please forgive all butchering that I've done to Robert Goodman's characters and ideas.

This is my sixth episode and I'm not even half way through writing this series! I'm amazed that I've made it this far… I think it's just because I've been feeding off of the positive reinforcements I get from those of you who leave feedback. Some of you might have noticed that I like to rotate the themes of the episodes. Some are for plot advancement, some are long chase scenes, some are relaxed... I hope it keeps things interesting. My personal comment for this episode is that I hope you find this sarcastically funny and that no one takes anything too offensively. Oh, and for those of you who might remotely care… For two seasons now, I've actually held a summer job as a ride operator at a local amusement park.

I'd like to comment on the fact that any similarities of themes with Iglika's "You Need Me" chapter 6 and my episode 6 are completely coincidental. It is our belief that since we share the same love for the characters we've begun to think alike. (Great minds think alike, right?) For the record though, Iglika had her idea down in near-perfect writing while at the time I only had mine down as a draft. Please note that the theme of fairytales in both of our stories is used for different purposes.

And as a secondary disclaimer I'd like to apologize to the additional butchering I've done to E. Nesbit's fantasy story, Melisande. (You can recognize parts from it in my version of Rapunzel.)

"Capitalism 101" Ep. 6 Season 3

"You think these people would get a life… I mean I just can't understand why anyone would insist on standing in line for hours for a four minute ride on a cheap little kart powered by a lawn mower power cell! I mean, come on! Just look at how pathetic these people are! Half of these people probably can't even fold up their legs to get into the driver's seat! What, did they all forget all of the butt time they already did driving hours to get here? No, wait, I've got it—these people must all have short commutes to work so they don't get the every day thrill of being in a traffic jam at rush hour so they need to get their fill from this ride."

"We waited two hours to go on that other ride."

"That other one was worth the wait. This one you just drive around a little track going 4.6 miles an hour in a miniature car!"

"I take it we'll be skipping this one," Zee said, looking at the park map in his hand for the next closest attraction. However, as he looked up expecting another sarcastic reply from Ro he saw that she wasn't in front of him but was standing at the end of the line to go on the ride. He walked over to her and joined her in the line. "If you said that these people need to get a life, then why are we going on the ride?"

"It's part of the experience," Ro said simply, pulling herself up onto the que line handrail so she could sit and rest her feet. No sooner had she done so did one of the park attendants spot her and asked her to climb down. "This is going to be a long wait…" she moaned, leaning over the rail, her feet aching.

"Come in," Bennet's stern voice called from his office desk.

Meekly, Dr. Edmund opened the door, letting himself into the office. He closed the door behind him and took the seat opposite of Bennet's desk. This would be the third time he'd been in Bennet's office.

"I have your court arraignment date here in front of me. After today you'll be placed in a temporary protection program until the date of your hearing. In the court hearing, it will be determined if you will be granted continued federal protection, or if you will be convicted of treason in which case your protection will be limited to the services of the federal jail." The coldness and lack of compassion in Bennet's voice still made Edmund feel uneasy, even though he knew by now that it wasn't in Bennet's nature to sugar coat anything business related. Bennet must have realized that he was being a little harsh, and continued on a lighter note, "Things are in your favor, though, as the courts have voted in favor of granting clemency in another circumstance like yours in the past. However, that is not why I called you in--your lawyer will be handling the case details." Bennet then got right to the point, "The reason I called you into day is because this will be the last opportunity that you will have to speak with me or anyone else in this organization before the trial. After today, all communication will be through your lawyer. Do you have any last comments to tell me in private, or in general before you are escorted to your new waiting facility?"

There was nothing more that he had to say to Bennet. He'd already disclosed everything he knew under interrogation earlier in the month, after he'd turned himself in again… Running away from Colonel Lemack and Bennet that night at the restaurant had given him another chance to rethink if he really wanted to go through with this, and in the end he'd decided that he did and had found his way back to the NSA again. He could have gone into hiding again for another few months, but to what purpose? He knew that he'd be discovered by Brother's Day soon, and as his financial resources were running short. Without a job for the past few months, he was practically broke. There was no other way around it. He couldn't keep running forever as Zeta was able to do. Zeta would have to take the blame so he could stop running.

He'd made the choice again to go and seek out Bennet and to arrange another appointment for when he could speak with Lemack. It had been much easier to meet with Bennet the second time, and to make another appointment. Bennet had known he would try again, and had been expecting him.

Now he was in Bennet's office for the third time. There was nothing more that he had to say to him except, "I don't plan on changing my testimony, but I think you should know: Zeta is being sincere when he says that he doesn't want to hurt people."

"That's not your problem or concern though, is it?" Bennet stated plainly.

"I know it isn't. I just wanted to tell you before the trial. That's all."

"Thank you for your time, Doctor," Bennet stood up from his chair to shake Edmund's hand over his desk. After they released hands Edmund left the room to return to his escort. He felt a little better to have told someone the truth—that Zeta was telling the truth—but the guilt that he had for still turning him in lingered, weighing down on his chest. Someday though, he'd eventually forgive himself for this betrayal.

Bennet sat down heavily in his chair. Small hints seemed to be adding up, and they were all saying the same thing, "The synthoid is right." Lee left his team because she believed him. Edmund even agreed, despite that he'll be testifying against Zeta. What Dr. Selig said about having put a conscience module in Zeta still echoed in his mind as well. Three witnesses…

Zee looked around the park. Being in the middle of the summer during the peak hours, the park was filled past normal capacity. "Maybe next time we should come during the off season?" he suggested.

"Ha, that's a good one," Ro said sarcastically. "I didn't know you had a sense of humor."

How was it that she found him funny when he wasn't trying to be funny? "But wouldn't there be less people so the lines would be shorter?"

Ro burst out laughing. It almost seemed like a mad laughter—the kind of laughter that usually follows an absolutely ridiculous idea or suggestion. But what he'd said wasn't ridiculous at all.

"You think that the park owners care how long we have to wait in line?" Her tone clearly expressed that she did not think that they cared.

"Shouldn't they? Isn't that the purpose of the park?--To provide its guests with entertainment?"

Someone needed to send this robot through "Capitalism 101". "No! This park isn't here for us! It's here for them!"

"Do they like to come to the park too?" he asked.

He was completely missing the point, as usual. But rather than finding it annoying, Ro was actually finding it kind of cute. He reminded her of an inquisitive young child… "Zee, this park is here for one purpose… to make the owners money. Not to make us happy, but to make them happy as they become rich because suckers like us are willing to pay a fortune to come and stand around in the sun to go on their cheap little rides."

It made sense, but there was still something he didn't understand. "What does that have to do with the lines not being shorter when there's less people in the park?"

"Profits." The one word explained everything, but not in enough detail so that Zee would be able to understand why this word was so important. "Okay, here's the deal," Ro began to set things out for him. "If they kept the same level of service up during the off season, the lines would be shorter. But as they're interested in keeping their profit margin up, they cut back on expenses, thus making the lines remain the same length, even though there are less people. No, Zee, coming here in the off season would only mean there are less park hours for you to wait in line."

Only judging by how late the park closed and when it opened they could predict when was the busiest time to come. As the park was open 6:00 am to 1:00 am, they knew it was going to be crowded. During the off season, the park opened around 10:00 am and closed at 8:00 pm.

The line moved forward a few feet so they sluggishly moved forward to fill the gap—like a herd of cows grazing in a field. Zee scanned around the area again. There was a take-out restaurant nearby with several dining tables and chairs set out under large red and white striped umbrellas. Hungry people were gathered around each table, greedily eating their seven dollar hamburgers. The unfortunate people who couldn't find seating were eating standing up with their plates cradled on one arm, staring enviously at those people who did have tables.

Across from the restaurant was the exit for one of the other rides in the area. Every five minutes a group of people came walking out of the exit, and every five minutes a child could be heard crying as they were being carried away by their parent away from the same ride. "Those poor kids," Ro sighed, shaking her head. "Their parents completely drag them on those rides, even though it's clear that the kid's too young to enjoy it… And now we're stuck listening to them scream while their parents try to get them to shut up so they can take them on another scary ride so they can start the process over."

Upon just looking at all of the tired people waiting in line, the screaming children, and the guests upset at having to pay a fortune for the park food—as the park heinously didn't allow them to bring in their own and it was too inconvenient to go out to the car again—this place didn't seem to be "the happiest place on earth" to him.

Bennet checked to make sure that he hadn't left any of his files lying out on his desk, and shut his office door behind him. He walked down to the other end of the hall and pushed the call button for the elevator. Once inside he pushed the button that would take him to the ground floor. The doors opened and he stepped out onto the street level parking garage for the NSA. Rush was waiting for him, her arms crossed over her chest. "You're late," she commented.

"I arrived precisely when I mean to arrive," he answered plainly. He didn't need to explain himself and Rush knew better than to ask.

"So where are we heading?" he asked.

"An amusement park in SoCal," she answered, handing him the coordinates on a small holographic hand-held map.

"Anything scheduled at the convention center over the weekend?" Bennet asked, noting that the building was within a close vicinity to the park.

"Just a home gardener's convention." There wasn't anything that came to Bennet's mind that Zeta could want from attending the convention, but then he couldn't see what purpose Zeta could have at an amusement park either. He hoped that this mission, they might find out what it is that Zeta was after now. After the invasion at the cryogen lab, he'd discovered that Zeta was after Selig, but now that the synthoid had accomplished its mission, who or what was its next target? A small voice spoke in the back of his thoughts, "What if there isn't a next target? What if it was all an accident, and the synthoid is telling the truth?" Nonsense. Zeta is a machine, a killer. He can't possibly have a conscience… No one can program a machine to have a conscience. Dr. Selig was old. He must have been losing his sanity when he said that he had given Zeta a conscience. Robots can't be capable of mimicking human thought." What was he thinking? It was very possible that a robot could mimic human thought, if it had a highly advanced program telling it how to imitate and copy what it observed. It would take a genius to make such a module, and Dr. Selig was a genius.

In the past, there had been several places that they'd followed Zeta to without knowing anything else other than that he'd been there or was still there. Occasionally they'd find out what it was that he was doing, but it was usually after he'd left the area. This could just be one of those instances. They'd have to follow him, in hopes that they'll find some information that will let them predict where he might turn up next time. "We'll have to check it out, regardless of its innocent appearance," he told Rush.

His words were the same as an order to move out. "Yes sir!" They climbed aboard the vehicle and set off to go find Infiltration Unit Zeta.

Ro glared at the back of the people's heads who were waiting in front of them. In her mind these people didn't have names or faces. They were just heads, bodies… a numerical count of figures that had to be overcome before she could go on the ride. And they unfortunately did have as much of a right to be waiting in line in front of her as she had to be waiting in line in front of the people behind her.

Zee could sense her irritableness at having to wait so long but there wasn't anything he could do. He began to compulsively scan the area again. First he looked down the line in front of them, then to the people at the outdoor restaurant area, then the people getting off of the other ride, and lastly his gaze would usually rest on the general mass of people walking around until it was their turn to inch forward in line again.

"Stop doing that!"

Any other person might have found themselves asking "Stop doing what?" if they hadn't already realized for themselves that they were impulsively looking around the area every five minutes. It would be improper for him to answer her in this manner as he did know that he was routinely checking the area. However, he couldn't decide if he felt compelled to do this because there was nothing better to do or because he was actually worried that there might be agents staked out somewhere in the park.

"You look like you're an animatronic puppet from one of those other cheesy rides."

"I'm sorry, I was just looking around to see if there were any…"

"I know who you're looking for. But I've got news for you, they're not coming."

"How can you be so sure?"

"You think anyone who's been waiting in this line all day long is going to let them cut in line to get to us?"

"We certainly have done a lot of waiting. Are you sure that it's the best thing that we could be doing with our time at this point?"

"Look, Edmund's hearing isn't for another month, right? I think we've got some time to take a break and relax, 'cuz afterwards things are going to get really hectic and crazy."

"We may think that we deserve a break, but I'm sure Bennet would disagree."

"That man is overly zealous when it comes to his work. He probably needs to take a break more than us… actually he needs a month long all expenses paid vacation…"

"He's not going to get his break this month. I'm sure he's busy preparing for the court case, while we're just waiting for something to happen."

"You have a better plan?" Ro asked him.

He'd been thinking about the idea for a while, but had been hesitant to bring it up with Ro. "I was just wondering if it would be beneficial to try and track down some of the other heads from the design team and see if they could offer any assistance."

"After what happened to Dr. Selig? Trust me Zee, they're going to want to stay as far away from you as possible, and would want you to do the same."

"They wouldn't need to come see me directly. They could just pick up the phone or send an email…"

"Zee, Zee. Hold up. What makes you think they're going to tell you anything remotely related to Selig? To them you're the enemy. They're not going to tell you anything useful after what's happened. Edmund's our only chance because he was there and he knows the truth. He owes us the favor. Those other guys don't."

He accepted her reasons for the moment, but would still keep the option fresh in the back of his mind in case things did fall through with Edmund—which was seeming more and more likely to occur as time continued to pass steadily. Things with Edmund were going very slowly. First it'd taken a long time to locate him, and then once they found him they'd lost him to the NSA. Now they'd have to wait another month for his court appearance. Even then it wasn't guaranteed that they'd be able to talk to him afterwards or that they'd get what they were after. Also, while Ro insisted that he owned them a favor, what if he didn't want to grant them their wish? Or what if he didn't have the means to anymore? It wouldn't be too far fetched to think that the NSA might compensate his belongings—including the files they wanted containing the proper scans and passwords to get into the Sub Rosa terminal.

But it was hard to concentrate and worry about the small undermining details related to their plan regarding Edmund when there was actually a bigger threat to worry about--the NSA was really working hard on getting the semi-organics online again. He had no way of knowing the extent of their efforts, or if they'd had any success in finding any of Dr. Selig's old files, but he did know that the NSA had a constant opportunity to search for the files and they didn't.

It felt like a race, and they were still waiting to start running while everyone else had passed the first checkpoint already. Maybe if the NSA didn't have infinite access to their own files they could still both be waiting at the starting line for a fair race? But wait, why did this have to be a race? And why did he bother to ask himself questions to which he already knew the answer? They both wanted the same set of files. It didn't matter that computer files could be copied and distributed over and over again. The only thing that mattered was who got to those files first.

While the NSA was typically looking for information regarding the construction of the semi-organics, what would happen if they found what he and Ro were looking for—a set of schematics for a conscience module? Would they have the integrity to admit they were wrong about him being reprogrammed by terrorists, or would they cover up the evidence because of their own pride and will?

In truth, he wanted to believe that they would do the right thing, but he doubted it. He was an expensive piece of government equipment. He figured they'd just as soon reprogram him rather than go to the trouble of acknowledging that he could think for himself, and to try and explain that to the rest of the population. He was sure that it was his doubt in the government's integrity that drove his eagerness to try alternative solutions to finding the files. It would be a month before they'd be able to see if they could even get the security clearance they needed to find out where to start looking for the files themselves. After that they'd still have to go behind "enemy lines" to retrieve the information. The longer they waited the more in danger, or at risk they were at the NSA finding the files first. And all they were doing about the current situation was waiting in line to drive a little car around a short track at 4.6 mph.

It was several more minutes until they began to get close to what Ro defined as, "Being at the point in line where they were so close to getting on the ride that the ride was going to break down any second and everyone in line would be asked to return at another time." Zee had protested that for the ride to break down every single car would have to be out of order, but then Ro reminded him that it didn't have to be every car, but just the one in front of theirs, or a tree branch that suddenly fell onto the middle of the track.

"Are you going to drive or am I?" Ro asked as the people in front of them got into their little car and the car attendant started walking back to pull another car up for them.

He was a little surprised that she would ask to him if he wanted to drive or not rather than just telling him, "You're driving," or "I want to drive." He guessed that he should feel honored that she would offer this privilege to him, especially after they'd waited three hours for this chance. However, maybe she wasn't offering him the chance, but was just asking out of politeness and expected him to read between the lines and know that she was going to drive after all. Usually he did all of the driving, which might mean that Ro was really just hinting that she wanted to drive this time. Or maybe she was really sincere?

"I think you'd probably enjoy it more," he declined.

"I don't really care anymore. I've been waiting too long in line to care anymore. I just want to get on it, then get off." Denial. He could see it in her eyes.

The attendant stopped their car in front of them. Zee noted how it was especially efficient how there was a pedal at the rear of the car which controlled the throttle so the attendants didn't actually have to get into the car to move it. "You go ahead and get in first," he gestured to Ro. She didn't argue, but climbed over the passenger seat to the driver's side on the left. Zee climbed into the seat next to her, and was trying to sit down when he felt his legs lock up slightly. These seats really were tiny! As the attendant turned her head away from them for a second, his legs shrunk in length, and he was able to sit comfortably down the rest of the way into the seat.

"Did they design these cars for giants? I can barely reach the pedal!" Zee

was ready to argue that it really was for the munchkin cast from the Wizard of Oz, but the attendant began to deliver them the car operation spiel as well as the guidelines for the rides. Up most on this list was not to bump the other cars in front of them.

The green light lit up, signaling that it was Ro's turn to go. She floored it, but the car didn't immediately take off. It slowly began to move forward, and that was it. "This is so lame…"

Zee turned around and looked behind him at the cover over the little car's motor. He saw the computer consulate on the side and a small cable snaked out from his wrist. In a second, Ro's car sped up but if she hadn't known that he was tweaking with the speed settings for the car, she wouldn't have been able to tell that it was going faster. "Sorry, but even after recalculating the power output and input for the motor, and coming up with a more efficient solution, this is as fast as I can get it to go," he said, retracting his cable.

"At least you tried." Unfortunately while they now had the advantage of having .1 more mph speed wise, the people in front of them must have had helium pumped into their shoes and were taking their time getting around the course. No wonder it'd taken this long to get in line! Any slower and these people would be driving backwards!

"I wish we could take this off-roading…" Ro muttered. If she could she'd completely swerve around them off of the normal track area just to pathetically "dust" them at 4.7 mph. Unfortunately, even if Zee did change the car's computer program to allow it to go off of the track they'd never be able to pass this car at this slow speed before they made it back to the unloading platform.

It seemed to Ro that the ride was over before it really even began. They were helped out of their car then directed up the stairs and over the track to where the exit was. Had anyone paid any close attention to the tall dark haired gentleman heading up the stairs they might have wondered why he seemed taller at the top of the stairs than at the bottom.

"Someone owes me the last three hours of my life back, I'm just not sure who," Ro said, leaning over the railing to watch the other cars pass underneath them on the track. "This stinks, big time."

Zee promptly replied, "So where are we going next?" By now he'd learned that if he just naturally took all of her remarks to be sardonic before considering them any other way, he would be correct more of the time than not.

"How about we go check out that one ride, you know the one where you ride around in those little flying pirate ships."

The ride was completely on the other half of the park. Maybe her feet wouldn't be hurting her so much if she went on all of the rides in one half of the park rather than jumping from attraction to attraction, or should he say walking? Not that he minded. His feet never got tired.

"If that's what you'd like to do," he said pulling out the park map to find the quickest route. Ro didn't bother to look at it with him, but grabbed his arm and began to pull him along.

He eventually put down the map and gave up on trying to locate the quickest route as he'd already accidentally bumped into two people from not watching where he was walking—or where Ro was dragging him. Also, shouldn't he be able to figure out the quickest route from all of the walking they'd done already?

As he caught up to her side their pace slowed down to a slow stroll rather than a speed walk competition to see who could get to the ride first, to start waiting in line first. The effort it took for them to run over there was probably not worth the time they'd save from getting head of a few more people who were walking over to the same ride. Their walking slowed down even more as the crowd became thicker. Zee could no longer walk at Ro's side, but had to follow closely behind her as she led the way through the crowd.

"What's the hold up?" Ro asked, "Are we at a sci-fi convention and they're hading out free light sabers?" as the crowd was especially gathered around this one particular area and was now unwillingly parting to let them through. She eventually gave up and began to try and back out of the crowd. They more freely let her move out from in front of them.

Even Zee wasn't tall enough to see over their heads to find out what the commotion was. Whatever it was he didn't like it. Large groups of people acting peculiarly were never a good thing. "I don't like this, we should leave," he cautioned Ro.

"Don't you want to find out what's going on?" she asked.

"Not really."

"Let me climb up on your shoulders," Ro suggested. It didn't seem proper in this environment, or for a person her size. There were several little girls and boys sitting on their parent's shoulders with their arms wrapped around their necks, but Ro was much older than they were.

He was just bending over to crouch down and let her onto his shoulders when he suddenly straightened up. The PA system on the street turned on and the opening fanfare to a musical march began to play. In a broad voice an announcer began to address the crowd. Zee didn't bother to listen to the automated speaker. He knew well enough what was being said and why the crowd was gathered here now. He was surprised he hadn't realized it sooner. He'd even been staring right at the park map a moment it ago! The afternoon parade "Princesses on Parade" was starting, and everyone was gathered along the parade route.

"It's the parade," Zee informed Ro of his enlightenment.

"You think?" she asked, her voice sounding a little irritable as well as bored and uninterested in this fact. He wasn't sure, but she might even have rolled her eyes as she said this.

It had been less that a minute ago that she'd asked what the crowd was for and now she was speaking as if she had the park calendar and schedule memorized! He never thought ill of her whenever she suddenly put on this apathetic, "know it all" attitude though. He suspected that this was actually something that she learned from growing up in the girls homes. From what Ro had told him, the common attitude among the other girls who were living in the orphanages was that they were there because no one cared about them. While he was certain that this really couldn't be the case for anyone, he could see how it was an easy scapegoat for them to express their sorrows through. At the homes they were deprived of individual attention or of a close relationship with someone who would love them unconditionally. And, quite frankly, if they were placed in one of the homes it was because there was no one who could take care of them or would want do. In a way, it certainly did sound like they were placed there because no one wanted them.

He could imagine that growing up in an environment where no one sincerely cared about you would certainly make you not care about anyone, or anything else. For Ro, this was probably the case, whether she would admit it, or even knew that this was why she was the way she was. The fact that she never liked to admit that she didn't know something, or that she was wrong, was probably a result of how at the girls' homes there was always fierce competition to prove one's self better than the other girls. It made simple sense, really… they made up the lack of self worth and encouragement that they should have received from their caretakers by aggrandizing each other, and trying to prove their worth to each other.

In the beginning he'd actually connected these personality traits to her unwavering strength and courage. It was easy to put on a straight face and to act indifferently to a situation if you didn't let it get to you on a personal level. It was easy to turn a blind eye and keep on walking past the needy if you didn't even bother to acknowledge their existence. It was easy to pretend like you didn't need a family if you said that you didn't care to have one. Yes, to others it might seem like Ro never let anything bother her because she didn't care too deeply about anything. However, he knew that anyone who assumed this was wrong—which also meant that he'd been wrong. Or was he? Maybe when he'd first met her she really hadn't cared about anyone or anything else but herself, but now he was sure that this wasn't the case. He knew that it only appeared this way because she wouldn't allow herself to let anyone see that she did care. But why wouldn't she want people to see how kind and caring she actually was? –Because such traits were considered "weak" in the _real_ world. It had to be more "girls' home" brainwashing propaganda…

He wasn't sure how he should react or what he should say in response to her comment. She didn't seem happy that the parade was starting, so should he even bother to ask if she wanted to try and find a spot to watch it from? He would have thought that it would be something that she might enjoy as an alternative to standing in line or walking around the park—but again, she didn't sound too pleased. Still, it couldn't hurt to ask. "They're not letting people cross the street until the parade is over. We could walk the long way around to get to the ride, or we could try to find seating and wait until it's over to cross. Or we could do something else entirely."

"How rude of them—making everyone walk all the way around! What, can't they just leave a break between the floats to let people through?"

"Liability issues. There was an incident several years ago where too many people were trying to cross in the break so the characters had to stop and wait for them to get out of the way. "

"So? Maybe they can add a break into their routines to fill up the time."

"The float behind the group nearly ran the characters over because it was unable to stop in time. It's much easier to not allow anyone through until it's over than to have to worry about such things again."

"How far out of the way would we have to go to get around this?" she asked next.

Zee didn't pull out the map as he had a clear picture of it in his head. "It's a long walk. It'd probably be just as much time to stay here and wait as it would for us to go around." Ro bit her lower lip as she evaluated the decision. Zee added another important piece of information to the equation. "If we wait here then you could be resting your feet rather than walking around."

"There's one problem with staying here though. I don't see how we can watch a parade when we can't even see over the heads of the people in front of us. Heck! I'm wondering how they can even see over each other's heads! Do any of the cart vendors wandering around here sell periscopes?"

He doubted it. He took a few steps back from the crowd gathered along the street curb and began to look for a bench or something to stand on. There were a few benches, but they were occupied with other tired park guests, who were resting their feet. Ro was looking around the area as well for something to stand on as well. She laughed, then tugged on Zee's arm, pointing to an object nearby, "Even the trashcan's taken!" It was true. There was a little child standing on the top of it. His parents were close by in case he wanted to get down as well as to make sure that he didn't fall off. There wasn't anywhere that they could watch the parade from or any open seating where Ro could sit down and rest her feet. There was one option left to try.

"Climb up," Zee offered. Ro looked to her side where Zee had been standing. Then her gaze lowered to where he was crouched on the ground. He looked like he was ready to tie a loose shoelace. She smiled, as she slipped her legs over his shoulders, and wrapped her arms around his neck. There was no need to ask first whether or not she would be too heavy, and there was no need for him to say that he could only hold her up there for a little while before he got tired. He stood up again. It wasn't that bad of a view. Of course Zee still couldn't see anything, and probably anyone behind them now, but if they really wanted to see the parade they could do the same thing or have just gotten here earlier to get a better spot.

The parade music was playing, but Ro couldn't see anything yet. No wait, the first float was emerging from behind a group of trees further up the street. As the float got closer the speaker on the light post closest to their section of the street began to play an echo of the music that was being played in the section of the street that the float was currently in. How clever! The music followed along with the parade by playing ahead of it!

The first float was very impressive. Hanging from a wire, strung from the tip of a twenty foot tall crescent moon, was the moon princess Diana. Below her on the base of the float was her beloved prince, Endymion. Diana spent most of her time trying to do graceful water ballet type movements as she hung from the cable, while Endymion walked in small circles on the base of the float, waiving to all of the young boys in the audience. The story of Diana and Endymion's romance (and their full length feature film) was actually a scarce, modern example of how a movie could be reasonably financially successful, even though it didn't stick to the original piece of work or "myth" in this case. Quite frankly, after making the movie remotely watch-able by the standards set by the day's youth pop culture, the only thing that remained true to the original myth was their names.

The next float was centered on the story of the young, dragon-slaying hero, Aerin. Aerin was actually more of a tom-boy than a princess, but her movie was popular enough to not only give her a place in the parade, but a whole thirty foot long animated "fire breathing" dragon float a well! Along the parade route the dragon would shoot little bursts of flames out of its nose until Aerin went up to "stab" it with her sword in which case it'd stop. She was accompanied by a whole contingent of men in shiny suits of armor as well as other cast characters dressed up in smaller dragon costumes who would act out small battles with the knights.

Following them was a dancing group of fairy princesses. Ro hadn't seen the movie to know for sure, but from what she could tell, the only thing that made these fairies princesses, was that the marketers had realized that if they said that any one character was a "princess", more than 75 of the girls who watched the movies would suddenly have to urge to buy any merchandise with the same character on it. Ro felt sorry for the fairy princes who were forced to wear tights as a part of their costume. They did a great job of acting like they enjoyed running around in their tights with their stage smiles.

The parade in general was typically geared more toward a feminine audience (as it was the "_Princesses_ on Parade") but there were still some male cast characters walking along in the parade as well. However, these were practically limited to the princesses' princes. In the late 20th century, marketers and manufacturers had believed young boys to be the most easily impressionable market with the most influential buying power. However, within the next two decades after that, it was discovered that young girls actually had just as much, if not more buying influence than their counterparts. This discovery stemmed from the fact that groups of girls in the older age brackets, on average, spent more than the groups of boys in the same age brackets. Tracing their buying trends backwards, it was discovered that girls were actually more ideal to market to than boys. The girls spent more time shopping than boys did, which meant they were more exposed to advertising than boys were, and they spent more of their discretionary income on frivolous things per month, than the boys did. The untapped resource was immediately exploited shortly thereafter.

Ro had no idea why the princess theme was so popular with the young girls. Maybe each girl secretly dreamed that she was really a princess inside? However, if this really was the case someone needed to get them a reality check.

Next came the floats with the original group of princesses who had inspired the "every girl is a princess," scheme. Ro thought the effect these princesses had on such an impressionable audience (mainly due to the extensive promotion the princesses were given) was sickening. Did these people realize what kind of role models they were elevating? She guessed that if money is their incentive, then they can put whomever they want on display in a parade.

First in line was Snow White, who despite her innocent, sweet natured and naïve personality--could only scrounge up the heart of necrophilliac to spend the rest of her happily ever after with. Thank goodness Prince Charming saw some other redeeming qualities in her, such as her high-pitched childish voice, or else he would really have been disappointed when she woke up unexpectedly after he kissed her.

Next came Cinderella in her golden orange carriage. Cinderella, while not naturally a princess, had squirmed way into the royal family through hard work and by using mice as sweatshop labor. The important lesson to learn from her example was that if someone wished hard enough and dreamed enough they would still come up short, and only through the help of a long lost fairy godmother could their dreams fully be realized. Fat chance that anyone else in the world had a fairy godmother, especially one whom they didn't even know existed until they appeared right under their nose.

After Cinderella came Princess Aurora. Aurora never had to lift a finger for her happy ending. From being born into a royal family thus securing a betrothal, she really didn't need to be gifted with grace, beauty, and polite manners to get a prince to kiss her when she was asleep. What a role model. Or what about Belle? Had she even considered that she might be expected to pass down an heir if she married the beast? Ro decided she wasn't even going to go there.

Zee tilted his head up to try and take a glance at Ro and see how she was enjoying the parade. She was rather quiet as she watched the floats go by. He wasn't bored, but was actually wondering if she was. He couldn't make any kind of judgment as to whether the content of the parade might bore Ro or not as he couldn't see anything. She hasn't said that she was bored, so was he to assume that she wasn't?

The parade was half over by now. Shouts and cheers could be heard further up the street as the main "float" of the parade was coming. Actually it wasn't a float, but a group of twelve dancing princesses. Their costumes were simply stunning, as well as their jewel encrusted shoes—which hadn't been worn through yet. The movie these characters had come from had been an instant marketing hit when it was released. While the fairytale revival theme was quite popular, the only word to describe this fairytale story was "colossal." There were 12 different princesses meaning 12 different dolls (both princess and princes, actually making it 24 potential sales points), 12 sets of special dancing shoes, 12 different lunchboxes, 12 dancing princess key chains… Twelve of whatever a label or image could be put on. And miraculously all of the princesses had a different hair color, thus appealing to a wider range of girls. Naturally the girls with strawberry blonde hair would favor the princess who had the same hair color, and the girls with dark black hair favored the princess with the ebony black hair as well.

But, while all of the princesses were admired for their beauty and wardrobe, or individually worshipped because of their hair color, there was a favorite among all of the princesses. While Ro didn't have ash blonde hair or half of the other girls who admired her, Lina, the youngest of the twelve, was by far the most adored princess.

Despite being the most popular, Lina was actually not the hero of the fairy tale. Instead, the poor and lowly garden boy, Michael, had the most redeeming role in the fairytale. By being poor and humble he was not selfish or conceited as the other princes were, and thus did not get snared into the princesses' enchantment. In this version of the story, the princes were not executed, but became the princesses' dancing partners and remained trapped in their magical world.

When Rapunzel came through with her several hundred foot long braid of hair, tactfully being carried by several other cast members doing weaving motions with it back and forth on the street, Ro had decided that she'd seen enough of the parade. Also, the feeling of having a large paint can between her legs wasn't too comfortable. While Zee could hold her up there indefinitely she didn't think she could sit there for that long. Being a robot, he sure didn't come with any cushioning around the neck and shoulder area. "Let me down," Ro said, looking down at the top of his head.

He began to lower down so that she could easily climb off, but she had already slid her legs out from over his shoulder and dropped down onto the ground. "Is something wrong?" he asked leaning over to speak with her at eye level. His voice was hushed, as if he was worried that someone might overhear him.

"No, everything's fine."

"You don't like the parade?"

Despite all of her objections to it, it was very nicely coordinated and very eye-catching. "It's okay… But I'd only watch the rest of it if we had front row seats on the curb. Maybe we can camp out an hour before hand on the sidewalk to get a good view for when the parade runs again in the evening?"

"If you'd like to we can." Now for the next question, "What would you like to do next?"

Ro thought about it for a second. She was feeling relaxed from sitting down for a while, and didn't feel like walking over to the other ride at the moment. "Let's find somewhere where we can eat lunch."

He didn't bother to correct her, "Where you can eat lunch…"

Rather than pulling out their park map and looking under the restaurant guide Ro began walking around. If she picked up the scent of anything that smelled good she'd follow the smell to the restaurant. Or, if she walked by a restaurant and the appetizer menu displayed outside looked inviting, she might go there. Or maybe she'd just pick up some snack food from an overpriced cart vendor.

"Let's look in here for a sec," Ro said, tugging on Zee's arm as she pulled him into a small shop. The shop didn't sell food, but…fur coats? She'd pulled him into "Princess Furball's Coats." The shop didn't look like it was doing too well, as it wasn't very crowded.

In the story of Princess Furball, the princess is told by her father that she must marry an ogre, because the ogre promised her father lots of money for her hand in marriage. As the princess didn't want to marry the ogre she asked her father for bridal gifts that she believed to be impossible for her father to deliver. Aside for three dresses that were so finely woven they could be folded into a walnut shell she asked for a coat made of a thousand different kinds of fur, one piece from every animal in her father's kingdom. Hence the coat shop. However, in the middle of the summer, no one wanted to buy fur coats. The humane issue of whether the coats they were selling were made of real fur or faux fur was another issue.

After admiring a fox fur-lined jacket, Ro decided that it was indeed too hot for her to even considering buying such an item to wear in the evenings, or to save until the weather become colder as Autumn was getting closer and closer. They passed through the shop and came out into a small plaza on the other side. In the plaza there were tables set out. Tables, that usually mean that someone nearby would be selling food.

Ro looked at the sign over a large archway leading into a building. There was a guest greeter waiting at the front, holding sample menus to hand out. How nice. It was the "Princess and the Pea Soup" restaurant. The atmosphere inside of the restaurant, from what she could see through the arched doorway, looked nice, and the sounds coming from within sounded happy and cheerful. Clearly no one had brought their children in here from the lack of screaming and crying children who didn't want to finish their dinner before they could have dessert. "Here look good?" she asked Zee.

Why did she bother to ask? "Sure," he smiled.

The waiter smiled at the group in front of them as they approached her, and began to pass out menus to them. While pea soup was their main specialty, they did serve a variety of other soups and dishes. As the father of the party ahead of them took the menu, he had a moment in which he thought was cleverness and asked the waitress, "What's the difference between pea soup and roast beef?"

If only she wasn't being paid to put up with such comments and act like the guest had a pleasing sense of humor and that this was the first time she'd heard the joke. She could have rolled her eyes so hard that they might have stuck in the back of her head. This had to be the third time someone had told her that joke in the hour. There were two ways to approach this matter. She could either reveal the punch line and not entertain this guest in his "clever" moment, or she could do her job and humor him by pretending that she didn't know. Since guest service was the main goal for her employer, option one was out. There were a few ways to approach option two. She could pretend like she thought he was referring to something on the menu, or she could stand there with a dazed look on her face, or she could acknowledge it was a joke and ask what the answer was.

"Well…" she started to speak, but was interrupted by the man, "Anyone can roast beef." He'd been waiting for her to think about it for a second and as it seemed that she hadn't heard the joke before he couldn't wait to reveal the answer before she figured it out or someone else ruined the surprise, taking the credit for his joke.

She laughed heartily along with the man, but as soon as the man was out of ear shot, her laughter became broken and cold. Only Zee could hear her mutter, "Pervert," through her smile—full of clenched teeth.

"Two please," Zee said politely. She handed them their menus, then gestured for them to go ahead on inside where someone else would seat them. "Thank you," Zee said taking the menus from her. Wow. Someone actually said thanks! It actually made her feel good about doing her job.

"You're welcome," she smiled sincerely.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm good for the rest of the day now," Ro announced as they headed out of the restaurant. Zee had already paid the cashier and tipped their waitress so they were free to go venture out into the park again.

Ro had been fed and she'd been able to rest her feet for a while, thus actually meaning that she'd be good for a few more hours, rather than the rest of the day. Zee knew that she wouldn't actually be good for the rest of the day as she'd said the same thing after breakfast. Well, she hadn't said that she'd be good for the rest of the day, but until dinner— however, she'd grown tired again before lunch… He expected that she'd follow the same trend: they'd wait in line for a really big, popular ride and she'd be tired and grumpy again, thus meaning that she'd get tired and frustrated more quickly. Then they might go on another two or three big rides (or a couple of the smaller ones that were less popular and had shorter lines). By the time they were done with those rides she'd be ready for dinner and to sit down and rest her feet for a while, and thus would not have made it to the end of the day. But they were her in the park for her enjoyment, not to see how long she could suffer from hunger, dehydration, and physical exhaustion before wanting or needing another break.

As it'd been a while since he'd asked Ro what she wanted to do next, and as her opinion might have changed over the course of lunch he asked again, "So what do you want to do next?"

It seemed like he was a broken record as he was constantly asking her that question, but she didn't mind planning their itinerary. She looked around to see what attraction was closest. There was one in particular that stood out, or above, all of the rest. "I guess we could go burn off some of those calories we gained from lunch at Rapunzel's walkthrough tower…"

It was so funny how she always used the royal "we" when she was with him. "At least there shouldn't be a long line since it's a walkthrough which means that the line is the attraction," Zee said in support of her decision.

"Let's go then," Ro said, taking him by his arm.

"I've called ahead and have let their security chief know that we're coming. He'll be expecting us. He's sent me a list of some conditions he'd like use to abide by if we're going to enter the park itself." Rush handed the list to Bennet to read over.

He frowned as he read the list, then crumpled it angrily in his fist after he'd finished reading it. The list seemed to be in response to the fact that the park's chief of security didn't like the sudden announcement that they would intruding in over his current supreme authority over the park's security systems, more than that he was sincerely concerned about the guests safety. "It seems Officer Reiner doesn't like the feeling of having his toes stepped on," Bennet commented, throwing the note on the floor. Having to deal with a security officer who resented the fact that they would be intruding in on his "territory" would make things more difficult. He'd try to accommodate as many of the requests on the list, but as he was a federal government agent, his word would be the ultimate deciding factor. "Thank you Rush," he said stiffly then went to the front of the vehicle where he could address his entire team.

Rush turned around in her seat to listen to Bennet's announcement, although she already had a mind as to what it was about as she'd spoken with the park's security chief in person, and she'd red the list before handing it to Bennet.

Bennet waited for all of his team to look up at him before he started his announcements. Only if he saw their eyes staring back at him did he know that hey had their full undivided attention… "West!" he barked. West quickly looked up from his computer console, grinning sheepishly. Seeing that everyone was listening to him now he gave the layout of their mission, only stating the relevant facts that applied to the entire team. He wouldn't waste their time by reading them the entire list as it wasn't important for them to know the fine details of the permission request for them to be allowed into the park.

"This assignment will be much like the other assignments that you've been on before. As in the past, our goal is still to obtain the synthoid in working condition by using stealth techniques covert maneuvers. We do not want the synthoid to know that we're coming. The location of this mission will largely determine the success of our stakeout. The amusement park we're heading to is highly populated—more than any other location we've been at. This will make it easier for us to blend in, but it will also mean more of a crowd for Zeta and his accomplice to disappear into. The key to our success is to not alert them of out presence until we've got them surrounded."

"Does this mean we'll be going in undercover?" One of the agents inquired.

"As easy as it would make our job, we have been requested to remain in our uniforms if we wish to enter the park armed with any larger equipment other than your standard issue side arms." Not only was it one of Officer Reiner's requests, but it was also the NSA's policy to be in uniform when openly armed and among a large crowd of people. Their uniforms reassured the civilians that they were qualified and certified to be carrying fire arms. It also made their positions of authority more easily recognizable.

He continued, "For safety precautions, as during this time of year the park is very crowded, the park security chief has also requested that we do not bring in any weapons or equipment that: 'might harm any of their guests at the park, or _inconvenience _their day'." He frowned after he'd said this last sentence. It was highly unprofessional to criticize another group or organization in front of his team (especially one that dealt with citizen safety as well) and he'd been a little too sarcastic when he'd quoted Officer Reiner's words from the memo he'd sent. If he were the park's security chief, a little inconvenience to any of the park guests' day would be the least of his worries when faced with the reality that there was a terrorist synthoid running around the park unchecked. If he were in charge, he'd be more cooperative with the recovery party and would allow them more leniency on what equipment they could bring into the park to apprehend such a dangerous criminal.

"So what are we allowed to bring in?" another agent asked, although if he hadn't interrupted, Bennet would have gotten around to answering his question momentarily.

"As Zeta is a not just a threat to the people in the park, but a threat to national security, in the better interest of the matter, we will be disregarding this last request." The request had been outright ridiculous. How could Officer Reiner expect them to catch Zeta with their bare hands—which was what the memo practically confined them to. While the safety of the guests was important, it would be unwise to be completely defenseless when dealing with a synthoid who was not.

In his ideal world he'd actually have the entire park surrounded, and then shut down, and would be scanning each of the guests as they exited the park. But this wasn't even reasonable by the NSA's standards… By the time they coordinated such a large effort Zeta would already have found a back door out of the park. Also, Officer Reiner would have a fit about how much profit the park would lose from an evacuation and the bad promotion. He only knew that this was how Officer Reiner would react as it had been Officer Reiner's first reaction after he'd informed him of the situation. However, after he'd sent him Zeta's history and profile, the security chief had taken a different stance on the matter. Unfortunately that stance was more of an apathetic one. Officer Reiner had looked at Zeta's profile and had asked whether Zeta needed to be apprehended immediately as didn't appear that he had a dangerous criminal profile or a record of violence.

No record of violence--Ha! It was only because he couldn't reveal what Zeta had done to the Noesis, that made the synthoid's violence record seem relatively clean. Still, it wasn't in Officer Reiner's power to deny them access into the park to retrieve Zeta, so he didn't have a choice about the matter.

"It should be strongly noted that the park does not want to risk any bad publicity from someone accidentally get shot as a result of our efforts, so exercise great caution when handling your equipment," he explained. West felt as if he was glancing in his direction a little too long after that last comment. "In addition to your side arms, we'll be bringing in our EMP rifles, and restraining artillery such as containment shells and motion inhibitors. Please be aware, due to the nature of this crowded environment, you are not to fire any EMP shots unless you are in an emergency situation. Always keep in mind that the safety of the guests in the park is your number one priority… over apprehending the synthoid." But didn't capturing the synthoid secure that the park guests would be safe?

"Why only in emergency situations?" West asked. "If we see him, shouldn't we just blast him?" he asked.

If he had a tally sheet of how many weeks he'd thought about withholding West's side arm, but didn't, it would be at least a year before he permitted West to carry a butter knife on him. "While an EMP shot would certainly immobilize Zeta, if you accidentally missed, the risk of it hitting a guest is greater in this crowded environment."

"I thought people weren't affected by an EMP," West protested.

"Yeah, but it would deactivate someone's watch or pocket organizer…" Rush began to explain, but was immediately cut off by Bennet, providing the most important factor, "The person you hit might be someone with a pace maker." West quickly shut his mouth, but it was too late, "I'm assigning you to a containment shell launcher…"

"Awww, man…" West groaned. Those things were much heavier than the lighter weight EMP rifles.

Bennet ignored his protests, "The plan is to meet with the security chief, then address the park employees through their communications system to alert them of our presence in the park. They will be given special directions on what to do if they spot Zeta. From there we will work out how we will corner Zeta and move him into a secure, safe area, away from the park guests, in which we may detain or immobilize him. Any questions." He turned his back to his team and stared out the front window of the vehicle.

"Are we sure he's still in the park, "someone behind him asked. It was a good question, one which he'd asked himself.

"While there is always the possibility that they will have moved on by the time that we arrive, we believe he is still the park as on the accounting records it shows that he's reserved a hotel room for the rest of the week."

"If we …" West began to ask his question, but Bennet cut him off, "If we catch Zeta early in the day we will not be spending the rest of the evening in the park." It was as if Bennet was psychic…

Their vehicle slowed down as they approached the security checkpoint into the park. Despite the large letters, "NSA" painted on the side of their vehicle Bennet was still required to pull out his ID and prove that he really was the government agent who had called earlier before they were let past the gate.

The van was parked and Bennet let the parade of agents to the security office. The Officer Reiner was indeed waiting for them when they arrived. "Agent Bennet," he said, extending his hand formally, but stiffly. Bennet shook it quickly, then got right to work.

"What preparations have you accomplished so far?" he asked.

"We've alerted all park employees of your presence here, and have read them the memo you sent ahead. They've been informed to check in shortly for the rest of your message as to how to deal with the synthoid. When you're ready, I've got an open channel to the park security control communication phones, that you may address them through. We can record the message and keep it on file so that it can be replayed for the evening employees who'll come in a few hours."

"These phones… how discrete are they?" Bennet asked.

"Most phones are located out of guest viewing areas and come with headphones."

"Most phones?" Bennet clarified.

"There are vid phones on the ride operation control panels, but guests aren't allowed access to those. The panels are at an angle so guests still won't be able to see the screens. And, there are headphones at those stations…" Officer Reiner clarified. This agent sure was taking things very seriously!

"What's the security precautions for preventing tapped lines?" Bennet asked.

"If you think your synthoid has already tapped into the phone lines there's nothing much we can do as of this point other than send a fleet of telegrams to each individual attraction."

That wouldn't do at all. It was too inefficient to address this many people in such a slow manner. He'd have to hope that the lines were secure as they were. "There may not be enough time for a tedious procedure. We're wasting time as it is. Where's the phone?" Bennet asked.

Officer Reiner had a growing feeling of dislike for this government agent, who seemed conceited and in an overly rushed hurry. Of course having a fugitive synthoid in the park worried him, but a rash, obsessive agent worried him just as much. Who knows what extreme actions this agent might risk in order to get his target? To him, it might just be simpler to wait for the synthoid to leave on his own rather than to try and corner him in the park. Bennet had assured him that the synthoid was relatively peaceful so that there was no immediate threat, but Bennet couldn't guarantee that Zeta wasn't planning something truly evil. What puzzled him mainly, was what could the synthoid possibly have against a family theme park?

Officer Reiner went over to the main park communications control panel. There were several vid screens built into the panel, each randomly switching to another camera in the front end area of the park. They couldn't possibly keep track of all of the entire park from this one station so there had to be alternate security offices located throughout the park. This one mainly centered on the parking lot and the entrance. He pressed a button on the panel and handed a small microphone to Bennet. After he'd pressed the button, several faces began to appear on the vid screens. They were park employees, picking up the phones as they rang at their select stations. "Just press the green button when you're ready," he instructed Bennet.

He didn't hesitate, but reached down and pressed the button to start recording and addressing the group. His message would mainly be directed to those employees who were operating the rides as that might be where they'd most likely spot Zeta and Ro—waiting in a line for a ride, if that's what they really came to the park for. "This is Agent James T. Bennet from the National Security Agency. As you've already been informed, there is a potentially dangerous fugitive running around in the park with its accomplice. Your job is to call in and inform us of its location should you see Zeta or his accomplice. Should you spot Zeta, use extreme caution. Do not attempt to engage the synthoid yourself. He is confused, and believes himself to be something he is not. Whatever you do, DO NOT draw attention to him or to yourself. Zeta will generally not respond hastily or violently unless he feels threatened. If you see him in your queue line do not stare at him, but keep an eye on him with your peripheral vision. If you cannot do this subtly then do not look at them at all. We do not want him to know that we're watching him. If you fail at this and he suspects he's being watched he will disappear into the crowd and will be impossible to locate without holomorphic scanners. We do not want this to happen at any cost. He will be easier to spot if he does not go into disguise. Should Zeta appear in your line, do not call immediately but wait until he is well into the queue line, or out of sight before calling in to report his location. Should he leave the area, or ride, take note of which direction he heads in, then call in as soon as possible. Subtle actions are the key."

Now was the time for him to upload the visual file of what these fugitives actually looked like. He'd sent a picture in earlier, but he couldn't count on the fact that everyone remembered what Zeta and Ro looked like from one glance at their wanted poster. Repetition would make sure they remembered what they looked like. Rush was waiting off to the side with the file ready. She gave him the thumbs up sign. Bennet continued, "While the synthoid is known to change appearances at a moment's notice, the girl is incapable of doing so. She will be the easiest to identify of the two." And now for the closing note, "Should the synthoid become aggressive, do not follow your park policy and procedures for dealing with an upset guest, but call in immediately. This is not your average cranky park guest, but a dangerous weapon. End of memo." He pressed the green button again to end the transmission. If these employees followed his advice they would be sure to have Zeta by the end of the day.

Just watching Bennet at his work made the security chief feel as if he were in a spy movie or something. Bennet's speech had been very clear as to how to deal with the synthoid, but he felt that he didn't emphasize enough about what to do if the synthoid did become aggressive or violent. "May we see a record of all current cred transfers occurring throughout the park at this moment?" Bennet asked as soon as he'd finished his announcement.

He scratched his head as he thought about this request. Cred transfers were usually under the accounting department's responsibility, not the security department's. But, being on the security team he did have access to such files as part of security was making sure there were no illegal money transfers going on inside of the park. And… if these cred transfers related to the capture of the synthoid somehow, that was related to security, which was under his jurisdiction so… yes, he could get such information for this agent. "I can get you yesterday's figures, but if you want today's figures we'll have to head over to the accounting department where they've got a live connection to the machines in the park."

"Take me there," Bennet said, already on his way out of the office.

The accounting office was located well beyond the regular borders of the park. The security chief got out his key for the small company electric tram car and started it up. Heck if he was going to walk all the way across the parking lot when he could drive. Bennet sat on the passenger side in the front with Rush and West in the back. They took off for the small building, located in the building complex on the outskirts of the park, well hidden behind a gate covered in tropical vines. The guard by the gate was about ready to cry from boredom until he saw the small tram car approaching. It was amazing. No one ever came through this gate in the middle of the day. There was always a lot of traffic at this gate in the mornings and evenings, but never in the middle of the day. So who were these visitors?

As they approached the gate, the security chief pulled out his ID and flashed it to the young guard. He glanced over the ID, then pressed the button that would open the gate. As they drove through, West smugly pulled out his ID and flashed it to the guard as he passed by. However, if he hadn't been informed that the NSA was coming to retrieve a malfunctioning synthoid, he wouldn't even have recognized the ID when West showed it to him. Here at the park, the only IDs that held much recognition were the ones with the park logo on the front. If he'd been handed such an ID the day before, he might have taken it home to scrape the wax off of his surfboard, rather than using his cred card, and have thought nothing more of it. To him the NSA was like the FBI and the CIA. He'd heard of them in movies, but had never seen someone from any organization in real life. Well, now he had.

After the tram car had passed through he closed the gate and sunk his head into his arms. To all of the other employees in the park, who didn't know better, his job seemed the most ideal. It was relatively relaxing, out of the sun, and required the least amount of effort in comparison to the high pay rate he received. But what those employees didn't know was the unbearable agony that came with being left in a small shack all day long, alone, and bored out of his mind. As part of his job description, reading a book or participating in any other activity that might possibly make the time pass by a little quicker, was not permitted as it would give off the impression that he wasn't paying attention to what was going on around him. Heaven forbid he shouldn't notice the gradual lengthening of the shadows from the lamp posts in this wasteland section of the parking lot, slowly stretch from one end to the other.

Their tram car slowed to a stop, and they were escorted into the accounting building. "May I use one of your computers?" Bennet asked. It was more of a polite gesture, than an actual request. He was going to use one of these computers, regardless of the chief's response. The formality of asking him first would just help the officer to not feel too threatened by their intrusion if he made it seem like he still has some authority over the matter.

Well… since he'd asked nicely, and Bennet was a government agent, and he was the chief of security over the park… who would dare argue with him if he said yes? "Let me set you up with the head of the department. She can show you to a free computer," he offered. He picked up his radio and asked, "1063, this is 1539, you copy?"

"1063 for 1539, go ahead," a voice cackled from his radio.

"1063, can you call me on line 5?"

"Sure thing, Bob," the voice replied. In a minute the phone rang, and the security officer picked it up. He quickly explained the situation to the woman on the other end of the phone. After a brief conversation he hung up the phone.

"She'll be here shortly," he explained.

From somewhere in the back of the department, a woman hurried forward. Her nametag read, "Kathleen." She introduced herself very quickly, then got right to business. Bennet appreciated her promptness. "I'm afraid that we keep most of our computers occupied, but Andrew is out to lunch for the hour so you can use his computer for now until we can get a spare hooked up. Our technician is already on his way over."

"Thank you, but this should only take a couple of minutes," Bennet declined her offer to have another computer set up for him.

"Very well then," she said, then showed Bennet to Andrew's cubicle. She turned on the computer and entered in her password into the computer. "It's all yours," she said, then left them to return to her work. Robert, their head chief of security was with them. He would make sure that they didn't go prodding around for any confidential files on their system.

Bennet sat down on the computer, and immediately opened an email attachment. He knew what files he'd need to send over, and where to find them on this computer. It was part of his training to know how to find such information. Bob was amazed as he watched this agent work. If he didn't know better he would have thought that his agent worked here part time! He knew exactly where to find the accounting files for the day, as well as the ones that were being processed at that very moment! While he was a little suspicious as he watched Bennet attach the documents to the open email, Bennet was an officer in the NSA, and it wasn't like he was sending over all of their past financial records.

With the files ready to be sent, Bennet adjusted the web camera on the top of the computer so that his face was centered in the vid cam window. He couldn't use the vid phone next to the computer as this office was undoubtedly not equipped to host a secure line. He would be able to set up a secure line over the internet however… He called in to the financial office at the NSA headquarters. "Please sign in," a voice prompted him.

He manually typed in his password, and was connected immediately. It felt good to type in his new password that accompanied his new increase in security clearance. Someone was waiting on the other end of the line when the internet call connected. "Agent Bennet, what can I do for you?" the woman on the other end asked. She'd been told to expect his call that day, and had already been briefed on what would happen when he did call.

"I'm sending over the current files for the park's accounting records. Let me know of any matches." With that he pushed the "send" button.

"I'll get right on it," she said, then her face disappeared and was replaced with the NSA symbol. It would be easy to single out any cred purchases Zeta made, as she would be looking in a very defined area rather than for any purchases made across the country. She looked over the list Bennet had sent her. In only a few minutes her face reappeared on the screen. "Got one!" she announced. "Card transfer record number…" she paused to read off the long number, "1009283493635." The numbers didn't mean anything to him.

"Where did he make the purchase?!" Bennet asked hastily. His heart began pumping faster in the excitement.

"Give me a second," the woman apologized. She didn't bother to put up the NSA screen saver while she looked. She had confirmed that the NSA records showed a purchase made inside of the amusement park, and the amusement park showed a withdrawal from the same account, but the NSA's files didn't tell her anything more than that. They needed the park's records, to find out which exact cred machine inside the park the transaction was made at. She quickly opened the other file Bennet had sent her. She scanned down the list for any matching purchase amounts. Miraculously, there was only one that matched the exact withdrawal amount on their records. Had there been more that one machine with the same amount she would have just taken the analysis one step further to see which of the machines had withdrawn from the NSA account for that amount. She'd found it. "The Princess and the Pea Soup. It's a restaurant. Total bill was for…"

"Never mind that. How long ago did they make the purchase?" Bennet asked.

"Ten minutes," she replied.

Ten minutes… With his old clearance it would have taken him a day to get such information! "Agents! Move out!" Bennet called to his group. "I'll leave the link open to the files. Be sure to call me if there are any more updates!" he said, then quickly closed off the secure connection. He'd have one of his agents waiting at the van leave a note for Andrew to not close the connection when he returned from his lunch. Without even bothering to take the time to push the chair back under the desk, he headed out.

"You... you found him already?" Bob asked, surprised. "That was quick!"

Yes, it was, but only because they'd known where to look for the information down to the city block. Had they tried to find any cred purchase made anywhere else within the last ten minutes they wouldn't have had as much luck.

"Rush, get me a park map!" Bennet started to order her, but she was one step ahead of him.

"Got one right here for you," she said handing him the neatly folded brochure. "Downloaded it off of the net," she explained.

"Well aren't we being the teacher's pet," West muttered, but not quietly enough.

"It's not being the teacher's pet West, it's called doing your job," Bennet said coldly. He opened the map and looked at the restaurant. "The Princess and the Pea Soup," it was in the pink area on the map, right near the center of the park. There were several attractions in that area of the park so chances were Zeta and Ro would still be in that section by the time they got there. Perfect. Maybe with any luck one of the park employees in the area had already spotted them and were waiting for a convenient time to call in!

They quickly hurried back to the van where Bennet left his last words of advice and instruction to the team that was waiting there for their return. At his command, several agents began to get geared up while others began to put on their undercover street clothes. It was only going against protocol if they were to be openly carrying around their weapons in such attire. They wouldn't be able to carry around the large equipment so he would leave such artillery to those of his agents that would be entering the park, in uniform.

While their uniforms would made walking around unnoticed difficult, it might not be completely to their disadvantage. With half of his team carrying large, bulky containment shell launchers on their backs, they looked like they were in costume, and were merely characters from some movie that might be currently in production. But rather than trying to turn this coincidence into an act, it would be best to stick with the original goal of keeping a low profile. He addressed his team just before they entered the park, "Here's the plan…"


	3. Chapter 3

The 250 foot tower loomed in front of them. Ro imagined that it must have been a tough challenge for the civil engineers who drew the plans for the obelisk-like structure, but even more for the person who had to get those plans approved by the city zoning committee.

As amazing as the fact that the plans to build the tower had actually been approved (considering all aspects such as natural disasters, and disasters as a result of idiotic guests who should never procreate, and whose parents should never have procreated) the landscaping around the tower was just as impressive.

The whole area looked like it was transported right out of a fairy tale book, except for the safety and zoning law-required blinking red light at the very top of the tower. That certainly didn't look very magical. Starting from the window at the very top of the tower there was a very long, golden rope braid that was hung all over the perimeter walls, draped from the lamppost tops, as well as coiled up in heaps on the ground. Yup, it certainly looked like there was a mile of hair snaking around the place.

"So, what do you think this is made of?" Ro asked, reaching out to touch one of the braid loops that were hanging along the walkway to the attraction. "They couldn't possibly have used real hair, because it would have been too hard to trim off all of those split ends…"

Zee stared at the braid for a second, then gave her the brief summary of his data bank report on what the substance was, "It appears to be made of an advanced fiber compound, with the chief fiber being nylon."

"Next question. Do you think this is one long strand of hair, or do you think they broke it up into sections?"

"It's not hair it's a synthetic fiber…"

Ro glared at him with the, "You know what I meant," look. He stopped his rambling and answered her promptly, "Most likely it's one long strand. Man-made fibers can be produced in infinite continuous lengths as long as resources are available."

As they got closer to the tower itself, Ro could see a line of people coming out of the entrance into the tower. How could there be a line for an attraction that's always moving? Simple, the attraction could have a line of people coming out of it slower than the swarm of people getting into the line. At least the line was constantly moving, however slow that motion might be. There was no one to blame for this long line but the people in line themselves. Just for this reason, there was a fashionable queue line for the guests to wait in, conveniently made from rope braids.

"Ro?" Zee cautiously asked, as they entered the queue line. He knew she was going to think his question was stupid, but he still couldn't help but ask, as he was sure she'd know the answer. Usually if either of them had a question, the other would know the answer or know how to figure it out. Despite this, neither of them knew the ultimate purpose of life, yet.

The hesitant tone of his voice let her know that he felt intimidated about something he was about to ask. She could encourage him to get over his shyness by replying with a soft voice as well. "Yes?" she asked.

"How is it possible that someone's hair could grow this long? Your hair has never shown this much potential for growth."****

"So what part of the fact that Rapunzel is a 'fairy tale story,' don't you understand?" Ro laughed at him. They'd been over this before when earlier in the day he'd asked about the logistics of how such stories came into existence if fairies themselves were magical creatures, or who came up with the idea that fairies could tell stories. This had actually been a question that neither of them had known the answer to. Luckily, someone who was waiting in line behind them had overheard their discussion and knew the answer.

The girl who'd known the answer was enrolled in French at her college and explained that the term "fairy tale" was coined from the French saying, "conte de fée" which when translated into the English, came out as "fairy tale". From there they'd gotten into a long discussion about what made a story a fairy tale, verses a myth or a folk tale while they waited in line. Both agreed that the root of any fairy tale was to have an undefined setting such as "once upon a time" and "in a land far away", and that a fairy tale also had to stereotypical characters with static personalities. Then, the most important element was that it had to have some kind of other-worldliness, or the ability to give the reader a sense of the surreal.

"I'm familiar with the story of Rapunzel!" Zee said defensively. He realized now that he'd actually set himself up for Ro's retort because he hadn't properly worded his question.

Ro gave him another chance to argue his case, "So what don't you get then?"

He clarified, while proving that he did know the fairy tale, "In the story Rapunzel is trapped in a tower by an evil witch. The witch, uses Rapunzel's hair to climb up to her in the tower, as well as the prince. So, why the mile of hair? Wouldn't 250 feet have been satisfactory? And unlike the other fairy tales, this one gives no supernatural explanation for how her hair is able to grow that long! It just happens! And what did the witch do while Rapunzel's hair was growing out to be 250 feet?"

"I don't get it Zee, you didn't complain about the fact that all the mermaids have hair when all other underwater mammals don't! "

"That's not entirely true. Whales and dolphins are born with hair above their lips, but it falls out as they grow up."

"Then why didn't the mermaids hair fall out?"

"That's not the point!" Zee protested. Their voices weren't raised so it didn't sound like they were getting into an argument, but it certainly felt like one to him. The last thing he wanted was to be disagreeable with Ro, or to have her mad at him. He didn't know what he'd do if one day she'd had it with him and left because of his simple mindedness.

"Then what is?" Ro asked.

They'd gotten so far from his original question that he wasn't really sure anymore. He also wasn't sure if he wanted to pursue the topic any longer. "Never mind," he dropped the subject.

"Come on, tell me!" His stated intention to remain silent on the matter only fueled her curiosity. Just what was it about Rapunzel's long hair that upset him so?

She didn't sound angry or that she felt like they were in an argument and that she was grateful that he'd dropped the matter. In fact, the fact that he'd tried to drop the subject only increased her eagerness. In a way, it felt good to have her interested in what he had to say for once. "Well, it's clear that these people went to a lot of effort to put all of this hair here, but why so much of it? It's completely inefficient? Wouldn't even 300 feet have been enough? They could easily have picked a simpler theme for the decoration."

Ro slapped her forehead, for not having realized what he meant sooner. "Zee, you are perfectly right. This is inefficient. However, since I know you haven't heard the revised story, I don't blame you for wondering."

"Revised story?"

"Yeah. Somewhere there was a group of storyboard creators who were thinking the same exact thing as you, 'How does someone's hair grow so long?' So they fixed the glitches in the story so that it made more sense."

"So what did they change?" Zee asked.

Ro was distracted for a second, as it was now their turn to file into the tower and begin climbing up the circular staircase to the top. The ingenuity of the staircase design was either brilliant or the most preposterous thing to ever be drawn on paper. The up staircase started out as a tight coil spiraling upwards until it got close to the top, in which case it began to spread out until it was circling around the perimeter circumference of the inside of the tower. The downward staircase did the opposite. It was tightly coiled around near the top, then spread out as it got closer to the bottom. It was the only way that they could have such a tall staircase running to the top, and still accommodate and up and down pathway. No wonder the witch needed a rope ladder…

Ro began to retell the story on their way up, "Well, Rapunzel didn't always have long hair. She was actually cursed by a fairy who was unhappy that she was not invited to the princess's christening."

"Why wasn't she invited?" Zee interrupted her.

"I was just about to say why!" Ro retorted. She cleared her throat, "The fairy wasn't invited because she was known to give the best or most appropriate gifts to little children. She didn't give little girls, long lashes or a beautiful singing voice, or excellent embroidery skills. No, no, no… She gave them things like the ability to always find the properly ripe fruit at the market, or she'd give the child knobby toes and knees. Though not all of the gifts she gave to children were inappropriate, most of the time they were unfitting and unglamorous for a princess. Come on, who wants to have the gift of always being punctual, or to speak correct grammar all of the time?"

Yeah, he guessed those kinds of gifts would be rather hard to accommodate, and would limit the princess's free choice. "So, in her anger, the fairy took one look at Rapunzel's beautiful golden hair, and got an evil idea. For her gift, she then cursed the princess's hair to fall out and never grow back again.

This greatly grieved her father and mother as—you know… all princesses are supposed to have beautiful, long hair, but what could they do? Then, the fairy stormed off, never to be seen in their kingdom again…"

Ro had no idea how high up they were yet, but climbing steps while talking at the same time was becoming tiring. She stopped speaking in such a hurry to save her breath a little, "The princess was bald even until her sixteenth birthday…"

"What's so special about turning sixteen?" Zee interrupted her again.

She couldn't help but wonder herself what was so special about that age too. It seemed to be a reoccurring age for the princesses in all of the fairy tales. She'd turned sixteen last year, and it hadn't made her somehow magically mature and ready to marry a prince or rule a kingdom. She guessed that to a younger, more naive and less experienced mind, it might seem like an age where a person could be deemed as "grown up", but she knew better. Grown ups had to support themselves on their own income, deal with getting summoned in for jury duty, apply for house loans, and keep up with their car and insurance payments every month. She was so young she couldn't even buy a lottery ticket at the local drug store. The most ironic fact of the matter was how this simple number related to the park admission prices… According to them, once someone reached the age of twelve, they could be considered as an "adult" and could be charged the adult admission price. If money wasn't a trivial thing to her and Zee, she might argue that she shouldn't be charged the higher adult prince for at least another two years.

"I'm not sure. I guess it just seems like an age that someone appears to be grown up to someone who's younger than that age."

Satisfied with her explanation he let her continue. It took her a second to remember where she left off. "By that time in her life she was supposed to be married to a prince, but no prince wanted to marry a princess without any hair."

"That's superficial."

"Uh huh. To remedy this problem, her mother decided that she would finally use a fairy wish that she'd been saving for a long time. Since the kingdom was at peace and was prospering, she didn't have any qualms about the wish she was going to make."

"What did she wish for?"

"She wished that Rapunzel's hair would grow out three feet, then would continue to grow one inch every day, and then grow twice as fast each time it was cut. But, before the king could wisely advice the queen to make some kind of maximum growth length for the princess's hair, the wise grew cold and ended. You see, the king was smart, and realized how much trouble they would be in, in just a matter of months."

Zee automatically began to calculate the growth rate for the princess's hair. In five weeks, the princess's hair would be floor length. Then if it were cut, it would be that same length in half of the time… "That would be a problem," he agreed.

"Because she had so much hair, it pulled down on her head and so she had to have it cut every morning before she could even get out of bed because it kept growing and growing back, longer and longer every morning! As you can guess, it soon got out of hand! The princess's hair was soon the chief staple export of the small kingdom. The king saw the problem was getting out of hand so he searched far and wide for a way to undo the spell. In his search he found the recipe for a potion that would make the princess's hair stop growing. However, the potion required an ingredient that only the evil witch had. The king tried to bargain with the witch for the ingredient, but she was unreasonable and refused to help him. So, the king felt that he had to steal it as Rapunzel's hair was getting out of control. The witch found out that he'd stolen the ingredient, and so she stole Rapunzel!"

"One bad deed shouldn't be repaid by another."

"No it shouldn't…" Ro trailed off. Just how much more did they have to climb until they reached the top? Did the staircase secretly spiral downward so every two steps they took up, they were really only taking one?

"The witch locked Rapunzel in a tower much shorter than this one, and used Rapunzel's hair to climb up. However, Rapunzel's hair was still growing. But rather than cutting it, the witch let it grow. One day, though, a prince was riding his horse in the forest and he saw the princess's hair and followed the golden trail back to the tower. And yeah, then there's the whole deal with the prince."

Ro wasn't sure if she was being brief with the story because she was getting tired, or if she really believed that Zee could put the two stories together. "But how could Rapunzel flee from the witch if she had all of this hair to drag along with her?"

"Well, the prince was not only handsome, but cunning. He had Rapunzel wrap her hair around a hook at top part of the tower, so that she was hanging a few inches off of the ground in her room. Then he cut herself off from her hair rather than cutting her hair from her. They used the rope braid to climb down from the tower and away from the witch. The next morning, the princess's hair was still the same length from when she cut it! However, in its place, the tower had grown one inch."

"So what was done about the tower?" Zee asked next.

Always curious, never satisfied… That was Zee alright. "The tower continued to grow one inch taller every single day until it blocked a wizard's view of a star constellation in the sky, in which case the wizard used his magic to stop the tower from growing, as using magic on an inanimate object was less dangerous then trying to undo a spell on a living person. And then everyone lived happily ever after, the end."

If she hadn't clearly stated that she was done talking of the matter he might have asked whether or not her hair grew even a little bit later in the princess's life. "Interesting," he commented. "Thank you, for explaining."

Their walk up the staircase was rather boring. The walls were plain and undecorated. They hadn't even bothered to pain a mural or anything on the walls. There was nothing to do but climb and climb and waive to the people heading down on the staircase that wrapped around the outside of the tower. There were no windows so they didn't have any way of telling how much longer it would be until they reached the top and could start climbing back down. "I wonder if anyone's ever passed out from climbing these things, "Ro was complaining, when she accidentally bumped into the person in front of her.

The line had stopped moving. Great someone must have had a heart attack and passed out at the top. The medical team was going to have a fun time trying to get a stretcher up the flight of stairs with all of the people stuck on them. There was one point on the stairs where there'd been a bridge between the larger flight of stairs going up, and the one going down. It was closed off to guests, but it did look like it was operable in an emergency situation. Most likely if an evacuation were to occur, the medical team would have the bottom half of the downward staircase cleared out, then the top half of the upward staircase. No way would they ever be able to get a stretcher up on the coiled staircases. The best solution, was to hope that nothing did or had happened.

After waiting for a minute, they line moved forward a bit. Then another minute or two passed and the line moved forward again. Ro was familiar with this line set up, and figured out what was up even before she could see what was going on. They were admitting small groups into the top room of the tower so that it didn't get too crowded up there. Ro looked up over the heads of the people in line. She could see the attraction supervisor, sitting on a raised platform behind a small operating panel, underneath the ceiling door that led into the tower room. Ro couldn't help but feel sorry for this girl as she'd felt sorry for the waitress at the restaurant. There were no elevators in the tower, so this girl had to walk all the way up to the top every single day to work, and all the way down. And if she wanted to go somewhere on her break, she'd have to walk down, then up again. If Ro had this job, she wouldn't bother to leave the tower for her break. It would take her the entire duration of her break just to make it down and up again, assuming that the crowd let her through. At least she didn't look like she was bored out of her mind. But that was probably a part of the job.

For the most part, the girl's eyes remained glued to the control panel in front of her. Most likely there was a camera in the tower room and she was watching the guests to make sure they didn't trash the property and that they exited the room in a timely manner before she let more guests in.

"I think she's just fallen asleep with her eyes open, this is taking forever!" Ro commented as she eyed the girl. "Can't she tell those people to hurry up and move on so we can have a turn sometime this year?"

Zee glanced over at the girl. She did look very interested in what was on her display panel. Whatever it was, it was definitely distracting her from letting the people into the room at reasonable intervals. There was something about her dazed stare that concerned him. He squinted slightly as his eyes zoomed in on the reflection of the vid screen on the girl's prescription glasses. This was one instance where some feature of his robotic nature was better than its humanistic paradigm. From the distance they were standing at, no human eye could discern the picture on the girl's glasses, but he could. The ghostly picture on her glasses had only been there for a second before the girl looked up from her panel, so he couldn't see the image anymore. It didn't matter that he couldn't see the picture anymore. The familiar profiles were easy enough to recognize. He'd be in trouble if he couldn't recognize his and Ro's own faces.

"Ro…" he started to say, but then realized that he didn't have enough time to explain but would have to act immediately. He took her elbow gently and quickly pulled her close to him, holding her head against his chest, using his hand as a partial shield to cover the side of her face from view. He then turned her around slightly, and looked down at the top of her head, shrugging his shoulder up slightly to cover his own face.

"What is it?" Ro asked, trying to look up at him while he held her head against his chest. He didn't permit her to look up at him, but continued to hold her closely to him.

"Shhh…" he whispered to her.

The girl was doing a good job at pretending not to be looking at them out of her peripheral vision, but Zee was better at the game. He could directly stare at her out of the corner of his eye, while having his holographic eye staring off in a different direction to create the illusion that he wasn't watching her. She finally remembered that she was supposed to let more people into the room and quickly pushed the button.

Great the line was moving, and so they would have to as well. As Zee still hadn't lessened his hold on her, Ro had to take a few shuffled steps up the stairs. It felt so hypocritical that they'd made fun of the couples who had glued themselves together (so that they walked funny when the line did start moving because they didn't want to separate) and now they were doing the same thing! But they had a good excuse, those other people didn't. When the line settled, Zee had managed to find them a spot against the wall. They still had about a three minute wait until they would be allowed into the room with a small group.

"Stay right there," Zee told her. With that itchy feeling of just wanting to run for their lives, three minutes would feel like hours. The fact that Zee had verbally told her to "stay" made it seem even harder to keep still.

She was leaning right back against the stair rail on the side of the wall, facing Zee, who was hunched over inches in front of her. His back was towards the girl at the control panel. Because he was taller he completely sheltered Ro from the girl's view, while keeping the back of his head conveniently facing her.

"What's going on?" Ro asked again.

"The girl at the control panel has a copy of our profiles."

She tried to peer around Zee's shoulder, half expecting to see the girl holding their "wanted" poster in her hands, though if she'd thought the matter through for a moment, she might have realized how ridiculous it would be for the girl to have a tangible copy of the posters. It would also be stupid of the girl to be openly displaying such an item.

Zee shifted his weight slightly, to continue to block Ro's face, and her view. "How do you know?" Ro asked, as she couldn't see for herself.

"It saw the reflection of it on her glasses." She wouldn't bother to ask if he was sure that it was them on the picture. Zee was usually always right. Then again, so was she.

"What are you waiting for then? Change us!" Ro said brusquely.

"I can't. She might have seen us already. Besides, there are too many people here."

She guessed she should have known better to tell Zee to disguise them. He was on top of the matter. If that had been an option he would have done that rather than keeping her hidden in his shadow.

"So should we run for it?" But as she saw the tightly packed line of people behind them she realized that they weren't going to get out the way they came in. This tower supported one-way directional traffic only. If they were going to run they'd have to do it on the way down. Even then there would be a problem from the corkscrew staircase part. They'd only be able to go as fast as the people in front of them. There were no windows they could jump out of, no doors to run through. For the moment, it seemed like they were trapped in the tower.

"Never mind that last idea," Ro refuted her own suggestion. "Do you think we could wait it out in the crowd?" she asked.

"Not likely. By the time that we got down to the bottom of the tower there would be someone waiting for us."

"You got that right, looks like she's on the phone now," Ro announced having stolen a glance at the girl when Zee wasn't actively blocking her view.

He quickly moved closer to her to shelter her again. "What's she saying?" Ro asked, as panic swept over her face.

He tried to fine tune his hearing to pick up what she was saying, but the chatter of the crowd was too loud. "I can't hear."

"Well I'm sure it'd sound something like this, "They're stuck here in line. Come and get 'em, they're sitting ducks!"

"Shhh," Zee tried to silence her. "There might still be a chance that she didn't recognize us."

"Look, you're doing a real good job at hiding our faces, but don't you think she'll find that suspicious?"

"Possibly, but it's better than giving her a clear confirmation that it's us."

"Even if she doesn't know it's us for sure you think she'd take that chance?"

Zee thought for second, "Probably not."

"And it certainly doesn't help that she's probably got a camera in that room too." They wouldn't be able to use the tower room as a "changing room" for some new appearances.

The line moved forward again. It seemed like the girl purposely let a larger group of people into the room just so that Zee and Ro would be planted right under her nose to be the first people in the next group to be admitted into the room. Ro clutched her arms to her chest. Maybe it would help her beating heart to be a little more muffled and to stop pounding so loudly?

The quick pulses of her heart, rattling against his shell for a body let him know that she was nervous. He gently stroked her hair, then reached under her chin and pulled her head up to look at him with a loving gesture. "Play the part," he thought to himself.

She peered at him out of the corner of her eye, then stared at him directly. The man who was holding her was not Zee, but someone else. Or rather, someone with his same hair cut, and slightly altered facial features. From the extra locks of holographic hair dangling in her face, she could tell that there was something different about her face as well, though she couldn't see what it was without a mirror.

While his plan to slightly alter their faces, but keep their dress the same, was a good way to create doubt with the girl, their new facelifts wouldn't hold up long against a pair of holoviewers.

He was grinning at her with a stupid "love sick" grin on his face. Yuck. She hated watching the infatuated couples in line who couldn't keep off of each other, and that's exactly what Zee had turned them into! At least it made a good excuse for why he was always holding her head close to him, or why they seemed to be glued together. She would have returned the silly pretentious smile if she thought she could do it without laughing out hysterically or retching.

It was finally their turn to be let into the room. The doors above them opened inward, and they were permitted to climb up the stairs into the tower room. Zee saw that there was no corner of the room for them to hide in from the camera (even though there could be no such corner as the tower room was round) because the camera was decoratively hidden in the middle of the light fixture, in the middle of the ceiling in the room.

The interior designers must have had fun trying to fit in the necessary furniture items of a princess into the room, while still leaving enough room for guests to walk around the furniture to admire them, and avoiding placing anything in the middle of the room where the entrance to the downward staircase was.

Zee pulled Ro around the crowd of people who were admiring the oval bed, which conveniently fit right up against the wall because of its unique shape. "What can we do? We're trapped!" Ro frantically hissed.

Zee looked across the room to a crowd of people on the other side. "No we're not…" he trailed off.

They squeezed their way over to the crowd of people who were trying to peer out of the single window in the entire tower. The window was left open and didn't have any glass in it so that Rapunzel's long rope braid could come in through the window and the loose end could be ornamentally tied off to the hook hanging right over the window.

However, knowing that there would be someone stupid enough to let their kid climb into the window sill and fall out of it to his death, there was an intricate frame on the inside of the window sill to prevent this from happening. This fence would be of little concern to Zee.

By being a little aggressive and impolite to some of the other people around them, they managed to make their way to the window. Zee looked down at the people below them. His eyes narrowed as he saw what he was dreading, and he regretfully informed Ro of his discovery. "This must _really_ be a popular vacation spot, Bennet's here."

"No surprise there," Ro said gloomily.

Bennet was cleverly standing in a dark shadow behind a large planted bush with his other agents, but he wasn't invisible to Zee's eyes. He was waiting off to the side of the exit for them. But how? How could he have gotten here so quickly? It'd been no more than five minutes since he'd first spotted the girl and Ro had seen her making a call. The only solutions were that Bennet was indeed taking "Fortune Telling and Predicting the Future" classes on his weekends at the local community college where he learned to know where they would before they even knew where they'd be…Or, the more likely solution—that he'd been in the area when the girl had made the call. But even then, what was the chance that he'd be right in the area when the girl called in to tell them that they were at the tower attraction?

Still, he didn't have time to figure it out. They had to think of a way to avoid Bennet at the bottom of the tower, or find a way to get out of the tower now. As Bennet had somehow known they would be at the tower, it wasn't likely that they could surprise him at the bottom of the tower. He was already waiting for them at the bottom of the tower so most likely, he was also "ready" for them.

Zee looked at the brackets that were holding the window in place. There wasn't time to unbolt and unscrew all of them, they needed at least a little of the element of surprise, but more specifically, the extra time that came with it when it caught someone off guard. The girl was probably watching them through the camera, relaying their every movement to Bennet below.

He eyed the rope braid that was tied off above the, then the anchor point at the end of the court yard below. He let go of Ro's hand and the hologram over her face disappeared. It didn't matter, as he was about to blow their cover in a second. He reached out and ripped off the fencing over the window. The bolts stripped out of the wall easily.

"Hold on tightly," Zee said, lifting her up with one arm, and holding her close to his side. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, hanging on for her dear life.

With the sound of the grate being pulled out from the window, everyone turned to look at the beautiful princess in her glamorous dress with her short blonde hair who was being held by her, strong, handsome prince. Interested in what was going on, and where these actors had suddenly appeared from, they crowded by the window.

Zee climbed halfway out of the window with Ro. She looked at the ground below them, and all of the doll-sized people walking around on it. "You know… now might not be the best time to remind you about my fear of heights…"

"Hang on!" he yelled as he swung his free arm over the rope braid and jumped the rest of the way out of the window.

It might have been more convincing that they were really actors in a show if Ro hadn't been screaming the whole time Zee slid down the rope braid.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

"I can't see them anymore!" The girl spoke frantically into her headset. The instant that Zee and Ro had entered the room she'd called in again.

"What do you mean by that?" Bennet's cold voice replied. "I thought you said there was a camera in the room. Is there, or isn't there?"

"There is, but my view is blocked!" Her voice was quivering slightly. Clearly she was scared. She pointlessly leaned right and left in her seat as if she were someone in the back of the crowd trying to look around the people in front of her, forgetting that she was not in the room but was only staring at a vid screen. "I…I can't see them!" she stammered again.

Before Bennet could ask her what was blocking her view, or if she could move the camera, the girl nearly shouted, "They've gone out the window!!!"

Bennet looked up overhead from the ground where he was waiting. He might have given himself reverse whip-lash from the speed at which he looked up with. Sliding down the rope, Zee and Ro were speedily passing over their heads, avoiding his planted trap for them at the tower exit. "After them!" he roared to his agents.

The rope braid leveled out from its sharp descent. Zee let go of the braid before it reached the ground, and dropped to his feet with Ro. He set her down quickly. "Come on!" he shouted, pulling her behind him. They'd landed near the edge of the courtyard of the castle, well head of Bennet, but they still hadn't escaped him entirely.

Zee began waiving at all of their fans as they passed through them to get out of the court yard. Ro was still dazed from the frightening thrill ride, and wasn't up to putting on an act. Keeping up with Zee was all she could do in her shocked state. Even though she'd done similar stunts like this before, it didn't make the exhilaration any less unnerving each time she had to do it again.

As soon as they passed out of the courtyard Zee removed their costume holograms as the costumes were attracting too much attention now. He changed their appearances again, it wouldn't do them much good as Bennet's agents all had their holoviewers with them, but it would prevent Bennet from asking other guests which way they'd seen Rapunzel and her prince run off to.

Ro began to run towards the park entrance and exit when Zee grabbed her arm and pulled her off in another direction. "This way!" he led her.

"Zee! We need to get out of the park! You're going the wrong way! The exit is that way!" she pointed back behind her.

"They'll be guarding the park entrance. We'll need to find another way out."

"Just peachy," Ro muttered sarcastically.

Zee looked over his shoulder. They'd successfully lost the agents in the crowd. There were too many people between them and the agents for the agents to be able to view them with their holoviewers. It would only be a matter of time before the agents gained sight of them again. They needed somewhere to hide, as well as some disguises that would hold out against the holoviewers. Not to mention Ro would need to rest and recover for a bit. He knew that it must have been terrifying for her to jump out of the tower with him, and that she hadn't had any time to recover since they'd immediately started running away once they'd landed.

As they continued to hurry through the crowds the flower covered trellises, stone cobble roads, and thatched roofed shops of the fantasy land area were abruptly replaced with tall bamboo shoots and leaf net canopies. The small planted pots of colorful flowers were exchanged with large containers of elephant ear and elephant grass, as well as other large tropical plants. There were no more turrets with little color flags on the, but lighted torches and totem poles. Instead of cone-shaped hats and fake jewel covered tiaras there woven grass hats being sold at the gift shops. They were in a whole new world, or rather a new area of the park.

Zee stole another glance behind them. He didn't detect any more agents following them. He would assume that they were safe for the moment. "In here," Zee said, quickly pulling her into one of the larger sized gift shops.

'What do we need here?" Ro asked. Sure she knew that they were safe from the agents for the moment, but of all the places they could hide, why a gift shop?

"Disguises."

Ro scowled at the clothes hanging on the racks inside of the shop. Of all themed lands that they could have wandered into, why did they have to go to one with oversized balloon safari shorts and large life vest jackets? Too bad there wasn't a "fashion land" that they could have wandered into instead.

Ro wandered around to the back of the store where there appeared to be more sophisticated merchandise. As she was wandering around, a small section of merchandise caught her eye. She picked up the fedora hat and looked at herself in the mirror.

"So what do you think?" she asked, pulling down the brim of the hat and giving him a flirtatious smile from under the rim. The hat made her feel as if she really were the sexy accomplice to some rugged adventure star. However, as she turned around from looking at her reflection in the mirror, her smile drooped and turned into a small frown. She was now looking right at that hideous outfit from the front of the store—only, it was being modeled by the only person in the entire park with enough money to waste on such an unfashionable wardrobe.

"Tell me that's your hologram," she asked before he could reply to her first commented.

"You don't like it?" he asked, quickly taking his arms out of the vest. She was having trouble telling whether he really was holding the real item, or if he was pretending to take off his hologram, as his hologram was so life-like. However, when proceeded to hang up the vest on the hanger and then set it off to the side on another clothing rack, she knew that the top, at least, was real. She doubted that he'd had enough time to go into the changing room to put the shorts on since she'd walked from the front of the store to the back.

"Well…in that outfit you wouldn't have to worry about someone calling the fashion police."

"That's good," Zee piped in.

"I wasn't finished," she added. "You wouldn't have to worry about someone calling the fashion police because they'd' go right to the fashion swat team."

"But I thought it was fashionable to wear the park merchandise while vacationing," he said. She could hear in his voice that she'd confused him, yet again. She doubted that one day went by when she didn't have to explain something to him.

"It's just like all of the other malls we go to-- just because they sell it, doesn't mean that it's okay to buy and wear. The fact that they're selling this inside of their own theme park is no exception."

"So I should put it back?" he asked.

"Definitely."

He began to apologize for his lack of style as he began to re-hang the vest so that it was professionally presentable again. There was a special, unappreciated art to folding and hanging clothes in retail shops so that they looked appealing on the hanger. He was attempting to mimic that art to save someone some time from having to re-hang the vest properly.

"Zee, don't worry about it," Ro quieted his apologies. It wasn't his fault he wasn't programmed to keep up with the latest trends, so why should be he sorry? "So, what do you think?" she asked, demanding his attention be turned to her new hat.

"It's a start," he agreed, "But that won't be enough to cover you from the agents."

"That's why they sell the matching jacket!" Ro said, eagerly pulling one off of the hanger and throwing it over her shoulders. It was a short cut bomber-style leather jacket. After throwing another flirty smile at herself in the mirror, she actually put on the jacket. Despite the fine quality leather, the jacket felt fairly light weight. Perfect, but hopefully, it wouldn't get too hot out in the sun.

Zee picked up another hat from one of the higher hat shelves, where the larger sizes were. He set his vest off to the side, and tried on the hat then grinned confidently and smugly at his reflection in the mirror. It felt good to be an action hero. "So what do you think?" he parroted her question, smiling down at her.

The hat looked very handsome on him, but something was still missing. She looked over at the long caramel trench coats hanging up next to the jackets. She pulled one off of its hanger and handed it to Zee.

She'd figured that the two items would make a good combination, she just didn't know how irresistibly handsome it would make Zee look in his rugged adventurer ensemble. "SOLD!" Ro shouted eagerly. He couldn't argue with her decision as the long coat would definitely cover his irregular robotic shape from a pair of holoviewers.

When he took off the long coat so he could take it up to the register, his safari shorts had disappeared during the short time when his legs were concealed by the coat. Ro followed his example and took of her jacket and hat. "You go pay for these while I return this mistake up to the front," Ro said to Zee, taking the large vest from where he'd temporarily hung it up.

From shopping with him in the past she knew that he couldn't just leave the vest there for someone to find and put back in its proper place, and that he'd feel better with re-hanging the items himself rather than making someone else have to do it later. Sometimes, though, it wasn't fathomable to possibly re-hang all of the items she took with her to the dressing room as if they did, they'd be stuck there all night trying to figure out where they went back.

The cashier didn't take any particular note of the expensive charge to Zee's cred card, as when someone had been working there as long as she had, they'd find that a lot of people could drop several hundred creds on souvenirs without blinking an eye. While a large portion of the people who came the park were on a tight budget, another large percentage had come with the intention to spend money and to have a good vacation without worrying about cutting corners or being frugal.

After receiving approval for the cred transfer, she removed the security tags from the jackets then neatly bagged their purchases. "Have a good afternoon," she said with a large smile, completely full of white teeth. Ro wondered if the woman ever felt obligated to bleach her teeth regularly because of all of the people she had to smile at every day, or whether they were naturally that white.

Just outside of the gift shop Zee opened the bag and picked out Ro's hat and jacket. He easily ripped off the tags, not leaving any annoying bits of the plastic tag to poke Ro in the back later on in the day. She felt rather awkward as she slipped her arms into her jacket, and put on her hat. It just didn't feel normal to be putting on their newly purchased items now rather than waiting to take them back to their hotel, then wearing them out the next day. In a few moments though, it wouldn't matter either way, as anyone who had seen them put on their disguises would have moved on to something else and have forgotten them completely.

"We need to get out of the park," Zee announced after throwing out the packaging from their clothing items, disposing of the evidence of their purchases.

"Well thank you for that outstanding observation, Captain Obvious, but I thought we already ruled that out because they're probably going to be guarding the exits," Ro said, folding her arms across her chest. She hated it whenever it felt like they were having a conversation that kept on recycling itself.

"While the there's only one entrance for park guests to use, there's got to be half a dozen more for the employees."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was watching those too… Did you see how all those agents were waiting for us at the foot of the tower?"

"You mean you actually had your eyes open for that? I would have thought you would have had them clenched shut…" Zee protested.

"If I'm gonna die, I'd like to see what's going to kill me, even if it means that I'm just staring at the ground."

He filed this remark in his memory and continued. "No, I didn't see them, but there were quite a few of them after us when we started running away."

"Exactly. Bennet was more than ready for us. It wasn't like usual when there were only a couple of them. Today's crowd was an ambush! It's almost like he knew we were going to be here!" She stopped herself realizing that of course he knew they were here or else he wouldn't be here so she quickly tried to clarify this obviousness. "I mean, you know, even if that girl really had called us in, how did he get so many agents here? Does he always have this large of a team? It just doesn't seem like the usual, "accidental bump into each other" type meeting that we usually have. This one almost seemed planned..."

Zee knew it really couldn't have been planned as coming here had clearly been one of Ro's spontaneous vacation ideas. Still, it did seem that Ro had a point. This wasn't like their usual meeting with Bennet. He was determined this time. He wouldn't doubt it if he had some of his regular agents putting in overtime for today's assignment. Still, speculating over the matter didn't really help them any. He passed another idea by Ro, "We might try to stay here in hiding until Bennet and his men give up and leave. If we keep an invisible profile, he might just assume that we already made it out so he won't waste his time continuing to look for us…"

"Actually, here is not a good place to be waiting, or to be standing for that matter," Ro broke in quickly. While sometimes it seemed like he did, Zee did not have eyes in the back of his head, therefore he couldn't see the agents coming towards them!

"This way!" she said, reaching out to grab his hand and pull him behind her. He readily grasped her hand and they began to move through the crowd, away from the agents behind them. Zee didn't turn around to look at them for himself, but completely relied on Ro's information. He didn't want to attract attention by turning around to look for them, or to give them the chance to see the front of his face.

They'd barely made any headway in the throng of people when Zee suddenly stopped walking. "Agents!" he whispered.

"I know! So keep walking!"

"We're trapped," he spoke quietly, still standing where he'd stopped walking.

Trapped? Who was he kidding? This wasn't trapped. Trapped was when they were stuck in a room with no doors or windows with Agent Bennet holding a gun to their heads. There was no way they could be trapped. Maybe temporarily surrounded, but not trapped. "Trapped usually would imply that all of our escape routes are cut off, and I find it hard to believe that we're at the stage yet."

"Look ahead," Zee advised Ro.

They were harder for her to pick out of the crowd than for Zee, but she soon recognized the second set of agents. Both of the agents had determined scowls on their faces. They didn't look like they were just casually scouting, but as if they knew of an almost surety that if they scrutinized the area enough, they weren't going to be let down in their search. Judging by the deliberate search pattern in which the agents were approaching them from both sides, in a short while they would be surrounded, and trapped!

"They're definitely looking for something, and I don't think they're just going to get tired and give up. I might have to agree with you on this one…Unless you think that we can sneak by them before they meet in the middle?"

Zee did a quick scan of the area. "No, but I have a better idea," he said, gently taking her arm, and relaxing his facial expression. There was a part of her that envied him—for being able to put on a calm face, as if nothing in the world could upset him—and then another part of her that was annoyed with him. In a small way, it bugged her that he shouldn't look even a little bit anxious over the situation. His expression at the moment was completely denying what she knew that he felt inside of him. It always felt like she'd lost a part of him when he showed an indifferent expression to the current situation. At the moment Zee looked like he didn't care about the agents searching for them, and this bothered her, as she knew that Zeta did care. No, not Zeta, still Zee… Whenever she heard or thought the name, "Zeta," she was regretfully reminded of the image of a heartless indifferent government assassin. She didn't want to remind herself of Zee's past by calling him "Zeta." He would always be Zee, even when he was in his robot form. She would banish Zeta from her mind. He would always just be Zee--Zee without his hologram on, and then Zee with it on. Right now it was Zee with his hologram on, but hiding his true feelings.

He began leading her toward the entrance to the ride closest to them. It was one of the larger and more popular rides in the park, the kind that took several hours to wait through. "Uh, Zee," Ro whispered when he saw where he was taking her, "I thought you might have learned from our last experience that waiting in lines isn't a good thing for staying hidden."

"We won't have to worry about this one," Zee replied confidently. There was a large group of people entering into the regular queue line from every direction. Then there was a smaller group of people entering into a parallel queue line. Zee unexpectedly guided Ro into the smaller group that was waiting for the secondary line. What was he thinking? Shouldn't they be trying to blend in with the larger group of people? The knot in her stomach tied another half-hitch into itself when she saw that there were two cast members waiting at the front of this secondary line. It looked like they were checking every ones ID's even!! Man, Bennet must really be out to get them!

Luckily, however, her overanxious suspicion about them checking for IDs was wrong. They were only checking the "Return Time Slips" for the ride. They were in the express waiting line for those who chose to come earlier in the day, theoretically save their spot in line, and then return at another time. Zee's hid his hand inside of his coat as it flashed as his hologram changed. When he removed his hand from inside of his coat pocket, he was holding two tickets, identical to the ones that everyone else was flashing to the cast members.

As they approached the two cast members, Zee coolly held up their tickets in plain sight so that they could read the time and date on them. He made it as obvious for them to read as possible so that they wouldn't as to handle the tickets to read them better, in which case the tickets would have disappeared the instant they left Zee's hand. However, these cast members didn't seem suspicious and let them through into the shorter line.

Ro knew what to do from this point and began to speedily walk through the queue line that led inside of what appeared to be a ruined temple. Zee followed closely after her, and in a few seconds they were out of sight, hidden inside of the ruined temple of the attraction queue line.

It felt really satisfying to be passing up all of the people who were waiting inside of the regular line. Why hadn't they done this with the other rides? The lines snaked around in a forward direction without many turns or switchbacks. Having not been in any line this long in the park so far, Ro was tempted to ask the people they were passing how long they'd waited to get to that point so far. Better yet, why not ask some of the people getting off of the line how long they'd waited to get on the ride? It was a nice thought, but she didn't see any lines with people moving the opposite direction in them.

Further up ahead, Ro could see that their express line had suddenly turned into a traffic jam, complete with bumper to bumper action, and parked cars. They'd finally caught up with the end of their line and were stuck waiting next to everyone else. "Now what?" Ro asked a little sourly at the reminiscence of having to wait in a long line again.

"We wait in line like everyone else of course," Zee replied simply.

Great… This was his plan? They'd be caught in no time! All the agents would have to do is follow them into the line and they'd be at their mercy with no where to run! There weren't any connecting paths to the exit line and inside of this temple, and side doors or windows were kind of hard to come by. "So that's your plan?" she accused him. "We'll just wait here until they decided to check the lines for us."  
"But you said that waiting in lines was a good thing. There's no way they'd be able to make their way to us now," he said, cleverly, looking behind him.

She hated to admit it, but she was shocked and impressed. The line had filled up so quickly behind them that they certainly were boxed in, but in a good way as Zee had planned! There was no way could the feds make their way through either of the tightly packed line to get to them! Not to mention there was no exit line for them to sneak up on them with! "Zee…" Ro stuttered, at a loss for words from her amazement. "Where did all of these people come from?" She knew that the lines filled up quickly, but this was incredible!

"It's 2:58," he started out, "the show you didn't want to see, you know the one with the belly dancers and sword acts?--it let out three minutes ago."

Sometimes his precognition amazed her. The performance theater was just next to this ride, so when it let out, nearly half of the people decided to get in line for the ride, while the other half already had express line tickets for it! And how clever of them to have reserved their space in line earlier enough in the day, so that it would be timed just right so that when the performance let out, they would have waited long enough for their tickets to be valid!

All day long she'd seen this kind of thing—some performance, movie, or show lets out, then everyone gets in line for the closest attractions. But, while' she'd seen this happen before, she'd never have been able to utilize such information to her advantage as Zee just did. "Zee, you're something else, you know that?" she smirked at him. He smiled. She was proud of him. It was one of the most gratifying things in the world. He only wished that he had some other miraculous plan that he could suddenly reveal that would make her even more thrilled with him. However, her confidence wasn't quite as hopeful as he thought it was as she then asked, "But what's going to happen when we get to the front of the line?"

He leaned over to whisper their plan to her so that the people around them wouldn't be able to eavesdrop, "We won't be going on this ride," he informed her.

"Joy, more waiting in line for nothing," she smiled.

He continued his explanation, "The exit for this ride actually lets out past the area where they agents are searching. If we take one of the 'last chance exits' that will be located a little further up in the line, we can completely avoid having to come anywhere near the front of the line. Then, we'll just get out of the attraction with the other people leaving the ride.

"And how far is, 'a little further up'?" she asked.

Zee looked down the line over the heads of the people, "Thirty minutes," he estimated.

"So distance wise, it's really close, but moving at, 'popular attraction queue line speed,' it's actually fairly far," Ro corrected him.

"Well, yes," he admitted.

"That's life," Ro resigned herself to be content with the situation. She wasn't going to give up the anxious feeling that she had until they'd waited a little longer and she was sure that the agents hadn't seen them and followed them into the line. After about an eternity of waiting, which was only about five minutes, her nerves calmed down and she became bored with the situation once again. "You think they'll be waiting for us at the exit?" she asked casually.

"I doubt it. Half an hour is a long time to wait for someone."

"But this is Bennet we're dealing with. He been waiting two years, yet he still hasn't given up."

"But for a single incidence, I don't he'd leave his agents to wait for half an hour when there's a chance we might still be wandering around the park somewhere."

"I hope you're right and that they're not going to come back in an hour to see how long it took us to go through this line."

"Are you sure they're here?" a feminine voice asked over his radio. Bennet picked up his radio and spoke into the receiver, "Keep looking. They're wearing a pair of adventure hats. Also, the synthoid is in a long leather jacket and the girl is in a shorter-styled jacket. Or even if they're not wearing them they'd carrying even larger bags of the items!! Go to the gift shop and ask to see a copy of these items if you must! They bought them less than ten minutes ago! They couldn't have gone far!" He'd received the announcement from the accounting records of Zee's purchases only a few minutes after he'd bought the items. It'd taken Bennet less than two minutes to send a team over to the area to search for them. They had to be in the area, they'd had such a fast turn around time they would have seen them coming if they'd tried to leave while they were heading over there.

"We stared from both ends and met in the middle, but we didn't see them."

"That doesn't mean they're not there. It just means that they're either in hiding or they moved on before we got there. Try around the east end of the park. If they tried to move out on the west the team over on this end would have seen them coming. Leave half of your team in the area while you scout on ahead if you really think they're not there."

"Yes sir!" the agent replied dutifully. She ended the radio transmission. However, as she briefly looked around the area one more time before moving on something caught her eye. "Sir!" she picked up her radio again.

"Yes?" he asked eagerly.

"I think they might have gotten in line for one of the attractions!" she declared.

"Which one?" he asked.

"The one right across from the gift shop!" she replied.

"Good, follow them in. I'll send word to the attraction supervisors to look for them as they come through the line. Bennet out."

With her partner they went up to the queue line entrance. There line was just a bunch of switchbacks, all full of people. They wouldn't be able to quickly scan over the group but would have to scrutinize it carefully. It would be all too easy for Zee and Ro to hide behind someone else in such a large crowd. They entered the line then began to push their way through the line, rationalizing their rudeness by uttering polite comments such as, "Excuse us" or "Sorry" or even, "We have important business, please move aside.'"

It was of little use as the line just continued to switch back forever and ever. Eventually everyone got the idea and moved aside to let them through, but it wasn't very helpful. The line just kept going and going! Seeing that they weren't getting anywhere quickly, they decided to try a smarter strategy. They made their way out of the line and approached the two cast members, who after the large rush a moment ago, didn't seem to have much else to do at the moment.

"Excuse me!" she addressed them. "Did you see a man and a girl come through here dressed in leather jackets and adventure hats?"

The cast members stared blankly at the agents then looked at each other. While they knew that these people were serious because of their uniforms and their uptight tone of voices, how could they tell them in a straight voice that they had indeed seen such people? How could they tell them than one in twenty people had bought some kind of adventure jacket and that nearly all the men who came through the line had leather jackets? Maybe not so commonly today because of the heat, but the jacket style was still very popular.

"Well…" one of the cast members started to say, trying to control his snickering as that would be impolite, "We have seen some people dressed like that, about two dozen today alone…"

"They would have come through here less than five minutes ago!" she replied sharply.

Clearly this agent was not someone with whom they should play their regular game of "Toy with the Distressed Guest" routine. No, reciting the procedure for what to do if they became separated from their group would not be appropriate in this instance. Nor would suggesting that after they found their lost party members that they arrange a meeting place for where they try to find each other for the next time they become separated. And lastly, they definitely should not ask if they want to wait here while they used the overhead speaker to see if their "mommy or daddy" is within hearing distance. The best thing to do in this instance would be to tell the truth. "We just had a large rush come through. It's really hard to take notice what each person is wearing. I'm sorry. You're welcome to wait for them by the exit for them if you think they're on the ride. The wait time is about 3 hours so you might just try coming back then. Or if you think there's a chance that they're up near the end of the line you can try searching the line for them…"

"We'll do just that, thank you," her partner replied brusquely. These people were being of little help to them.

Rather than going through the regular line, they entered into the express line. The cast member didn't try to make a snide comment about how they needed the special passes to be entering into that line, and let them go about their business. They made excellent progress, until they ran into the end of the line shortly. After that it was all downhill. No one wanted to let them through, and practically everyone ignored their pleas for cooperation. It would have been much easier if they could just announce in a loud voice what they were doing, and why it was important for them to have their way at the moment. However, it really didn't seem like a good idea to create such widespread panic from such a suggestion. Not to mention they'd lose the element of surprise if they loudly announced their presence there. Also, being in a setting where make believe was emphasized and elevated over the concept of reality, who would really take them seriously if they said a renegade infiltration unit and its accomplice was waiting in line for the ride with them?

"We're not going to get through." The agent sighed, looking at her partner.

"Should we try to wait for them at the exit then?"

"If we want to continue to assume that they actually are in this line somewhere and that they really aren't just somewhere else in the park, then yes, we should wait for them by the exit."

"I'll let Bennet know that we'll be lingering behind then," her partner offered, picking up his radio.

"Might as well. Waiting around here beats running around the park all day looking for something that probably isn't there."

"You're probably right, I'll inform Bennet," the agent said, turning around to make their way out of the line.

The line moved forward slowly at a pace of about sixteen people every thirty seconds, according to his calculations. Still, judging by the progress that they'd made in line, it seemed hard to Ro to believe that 640 people had actually gotten on this ride in just twenty minutes. Even allotting for the fact that maybe not all of the seats on the ride vehicle were full when it was dispatched, the numbers just didn't add up to her. On top of everything, Ro didn't think she could even count six hundred heads in front of her. There seemed to be no way to tell how long the line must really be if they couldn't even see such a small percentage of it.

His eyes narrowed as they emerged from a dimly lit dark passage way into a long well lit passageway. Lining the sides of this narrow stretch were decorative spikes coming up from the floor and ceiling, like stalactites and stalagmites. There were fake skulls embedded on the top of some of the spikes as well as skeletons impaled on others. Supposedly, this was one of the "booby traps" that they'd been warned against from strange messages, carved into the walls at earlier points in the line.

At first Ro had ignored the strange symbols that made up the messages because Zee had declared that they did not match or resemble anything in his record database under the category of," Known Ancient Symbols." However, after being forced to stare at one of the messages on the wall for several minutes as they waited, Ro had come to the realization that if she squinted really hard and turned her head sideways, the symbols actually slightly resembled the English alphabet. After her enlightened experience it was only a few seconds before Zee had figured out what the message said.

Several of the messages that Ro had had him translate were warnings about such booby traps along the path, while others cautioned against the consequences that awaited greedy treasure seekers who were out to plunder the temple of its valuables. Eventually Ro had gotten tired of hearing his translations so he no longer informed her when he saw another one of them. But, as the message for this hallway was more varied than the ones on the other walls had been, maybe he should point it out to her? No, despite his interest in the warning of the new message he didn't want Ro to chastise him for boring her with such knowledge. Still, most of the other messages made sense. So what exactly did this one mean by, "Don't go shaking bamboo poles?"

The line moved forward again, but it could have just been people getting comfortable rather than that they really were moving forward. "We're going to be stuck here forever," Ro sighed. "We should just go back out the way we came. The park is going to close and they're going to clear everyone out of the line before we even get to the front of it!" she said a little sourly.

Zee looked at her and tried to smile encouragingly, even though he knew that it wouldn't take the ache away from her feet, or that it wouldn't tell her how much longer they'd be stuck waiting. In truth, he didn't really even know for himself how much longer it would be. "I'm sorry," she suddenly apologized. It was strange, as that was just what he was going to do! It was completely in his nature to apologize for any of her discomforts as he felt it always was his fault when she was unhappy. While she told him over and over again that it was her choice to come with him, her choice to stay with him, and that she never regretted one moment that she was with him, he couldn't help but feel that every unfortunate thing that came their way was still his fault and that he should be sorry for it.

"Excuse me?" he asked politely. Did he really just hear her say that she was sorry? What could she possibly be sorry for when everything was his fault?

"I'm sorry," she repeated, turning to look directly at him. "I'm sorry for being so cranky and impatient. I shouldn't be so disagreeable when there's nothing you can do to improve the situation. I'll just be quiet now…" In a small way she felt like she'd just made a fool of herself, but it had seemed like the right thing to do just a second ago. She'd been cross and uptight at having to wait so long, but it wasn't Zee's fault that the line was moving so slowly! And while he insisted that it was his fault that the agents were after them, if he hadn't noticed, they seemed to be after her too. And how would her complaining benefit them anyway?

He wasn't sure if he was analyzing her emotions correctly, but it appeared that she looked apologizing hadn't made her felt better but worse? "No, it's okay, really!" he said quickly. She turned to look at him, a small hint of hope in her eyes. Was he going to refute the insults she'd given herself as a result of the confession of her own faults? Was he going to tell her that she really was patient and justifiable in her tiredness? "By monitoring your increasing degrees of irritableness, I can use such information as a general guide to how well the agents must be holding up by comparison," Zee added. –Or not…

"Glad to be of some assistance," Ro muttered, trying to sound a little bit grateful that he was trying to make an attempt to turn her bitterness into a good thing.

The line was moving again, so Ro took a few shuffled steps forward. They were a quarter of the way through the hallway now. "If what you say about the comparison thing is really true, then by my watch they should have left this dump an hour ago," Ro said, attempting to lean against the rope cord that served as a barrier to keep people out of the display area. It didn't' really work out too well because the rope was hanging too low to rest comfortably against her back, and she felt off balance with it resting against the back of her leg.

"But we haven't even been waiting in line that long," Zee protested.

"Yeah, but if you count the fact that they've been chasing us for the past two years, I think it adds up. It's kind of like counting the fact that we've actually been in the park the entire day…"

Zee didn't hear the rest of what Ro was explaining to him though. Up ahead in the hallway he could see a young boy was stretching his arm over the rope barrier, mischievously reaching out towards the only bamboo pole in the entire hallway. "No don't!" Zee cried out to the boy.

Too late. The boy was shaking the pole vigorously, paying no attention to Zee's cries. It was as if he hadn't heard Zee at all, which wouldn't be too unlikely among the chatter of the people talking in line.

Panic swept over Zee's face as he anxiously waited for some kind of booby trap to go off, just as the messages had warned him about. At the moment the program that controlled his rational thinking (which should have immediately informed him that they weren't in some forbidden temple out in the middle of Western Europe, but in a place where lawsuits were feared more than the thrill of adventure) was letting the "live the experience" program have more control over his actions and emotions. Of course, as he should have known better, nothing happened.

"You want to tell me what's going on, or do I not want to know?" Ro asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"It's nothing…" Zee said sheepishly. How could he tell her that because the boy had shaken the pole he'd almost expected a huge boulder to come rolling through, ready to crush anyone who was in the way? "I think I've been taking this whole adventure thing a little too seriously…"

From all around them a sharp screeching noise rang out. The noise certainly startled Ro as her arms were straight down at her side and her shoulders pulled back stiffly. "What was that?" she asked tensely. While she hadn't let out a startled scream as some of the other women had, she also hadn't remained completely indifferent as some of the other people around her reacted. Then, before she could even take a guess as to what had caused such a horrible sound—which sounded a lot like nails on a chalkboard—several two foot long spikes dropped out of previously concealed holes in the ceiling. There were more screams this time, but it was nothing compared to the uproar that soon followed as the ceiling suddenly dropped a distance of four feet in one second! They were going to die!

"Everybody get down!" Zee yelled over the cries from the startled crowd. But no one moved. They only stood there in silence. The screaming had almost stopped immediately, and the only sound that could be heard was the boy--laughing hysterically at the people who'd been fooled by the stunt. Then as he saw what everyone else was staring at, he too stopped laughing.

Several of them weren't even sure what they were looking at. The figure in front of them looked like some tall, gangly metallic skeleton, covered in shreds of a sinewy type skin. More freakish than the figure itself was the mystery of where it had suddenly come from. There were less than a handful of people who had witnessed the actual transformation. Had several of the people staring in Zee's direction not blinked when the event had happened, they might too have seen him split the seams of his leather coat as his hologram dispersed and his body, arms, and legs grew until he reached the ceiling of the hallway.

Zee gazed uncertainly back at the people below him. Something was wrong—besides the fact that he'd just blown cover and had mistaking believed, (along with the other screaming guests in line) that the ceiling really was going to fall on them. What bothered him more than the fact that he'd foolishly revealed themselves, was that the ceiling he was supposedly holding up above all of these unfortunate victims, hardly weighed anything at all! Not only was there not any resistance to him pushing up on the soft and spongy ceiling, but it was retracting! He reached out to touch one of the spikes. Despite its metallic and rigid appearance it bent easily, as if it was made out of rubber.

"This can't be good…" Zee muttered.

"Ha, ha! Would you look at that!" Ro laughed nervously. "Wonder whose idea it was to have that happen every half hour…" She wasn't fooling anyone though. Several of the people, particularly the ones who had remained calm the entire time, had been on this ride before and had been through this routine before. They knew there wasn't supposed to be some animatronic figure who came in to pretend to hold the ceiling up over them.

Zee slowly began to shrink back to his regular size again, as the ceiling returned to its normal position. His arms and legs shortened, and his chest compacted again, just like how the spikes in the ceiling retracted. Once he was his regular size again he began to remove what was left of the leather coat. He folded the rags in half then hung it over one of the ropes to his side. He reached up to remove his hat but apparently it'd already fallen off. Rather than replacing his hologram, he just stood there. How could he have done something this stupid?

Ro removed her own jacket and hat, "Here, keep it" Ro said, handing the items to the closest person to her. Rid of her disguise as they were useless now, she reached out for Zee's hand and began to pull him behind her. Needless to say, the once stubborn and unforgiving crowd easily let them pass through to the front of the line. Apparently, no one wanted to get close to the strange robot or the person with it.

With Zee being in his robotic form, it was easy to get people to move off to the side and let them through, even if they didn't know what had happened or what was going on now. His strange costume and his fierce appearance demanded respect, and to be let through. Rumor of what had happened in the corridor hadn't spread up this far, but in a few moments it would. If not the guests curiosity as to why a robot was being led through the line would certainly encourage them to inquire as to what was going on from those people in front and behind them. As they passed everyone Ro could hear the gossip spreading, almost as fast as a wild fire. The whispers followed behind them, just like a shadow.

In a minute they finally reached the point in the line where the exit line met up with the entrance line. "Finally!" Ro cried, letting go of Zee's hand, then crawling under the bamboo fence divider into the exit line. Zee easily stepped over the fence with his long legs. They were on their way out of the ride now! Zee nodded to the surprised guests they were cutting in front of for the exit, then took off running with Ro.

"What's that all about?" one of the surprised guests leaned over to ask someone in the line from which the robot and the girl had just come from.

"We're not sure either. They just came up through the line…"

"Strange," the guest muttered. "You think it's some kind of promotion for a new movie?"

"Could be, who knows anymore though? They've got so many projects going on all of the time…"

"True, true," the guest agreed, then politely ended the conversation.

"Smart one, Zee! Now just what were you thinking?" Ro asked as they ran towards the exit. They were running rather than walking because as soon as word of what had happened reached the front of the line, the ride operator would inform Bennet, who would then immediately set up post for them at the exit. They had to make it out of the exit queue line before that happened.

"… I thought they were in danger…" He said solemnly. He couldn't look at her as he said this. He didn't think he could stand to see the disappointment on her face as the anticipated disappointment that he could imagine her feeling toward him, was more than enough already.

"Yeah, you were afraid that a foam rubber ceiling was going to mess up some ten foot tall guy's Mohawk?"

"I wasn't the only one who thought it was really falling…" he tried to defend himself. He wouldn't mention that even Ro had gone tense when she'd heard the screeching noise.

"Zee, you're head is just somewhere else today. Even if it was really falling, what good would you have accomplished by getting impaled then squished by a concrete slab? If it was real, do you really think you could have held it up over everyone's head?"

"I had to do something…"

"Well, you most certainly did!" He didn't say anything in reply, and it simply made her feel sick to her stomach. Why was she being so hard on him? Fatigue was no excuse to be this rude to someone. He was just trying to look out for everyone else. No one as selfless and kind as Zee deserved to be treated this poorly. "Look, Zee, I'm…"

"It's alright, he cut her off. "I know." He knew she was sorry, and he didn't blame her one bit for being upset with him. He knew that he deserved to be disassembled and melted into soda cans for everything that he'd put her through, but that she'd still managed to forgive him for his flagrant stupidity.

She smiled, knowing that things really were smoothed over. She could tell because he'd put his hologram back on so that he could show her a sincere smile.

Through the enormous entry way ahead, natural light flooded the doorway. They were almost at the exit to the temple. Ro slowed down and stopped running, following Zee's lead. "Hold on," he said, holding his arm out in front of her. The light and dark contrast between the inside of the temple and outside was shockingly bright. However, once he turned on his polarized light filter, it was much easier to see the figures just outside of the entrance. "Two agents."

"Already?"

"It looks like they've been waiting for a while."

"So what do we do? Go back through the line and try and get out the entrance?"

"No, I have a different idea."

Maybe it was just her, but she kind of liked the way he said "different" rather than "better."

He checked on the agents one more time before telling Ro his plan.

"Take my hand," he said, extending his, after quickly briefing her.

She grinned, and squeezed it tightly. There was a quick flash of light, and then they were disguised. Clearly when Zee had checked out the agents, he'd noticed that they didn't have their holoviewers out at the moment.

A middle aged couple strolled casually out of the exit, then surprisingly walked right up to the agents! At first the agents seemed predisposed to ignore them, until it became obvious that these park guests were coming over to talk to them—as so many of the other people exiting the ride had.

Because they were in uniform nearly every character fanatic was coming up to them asking them for their autograph (first) and they asking what movie they'd starred in or would be starring in. From there they'd had to explain that they weren't costumed characters.

They didn't immediately pull their guns out on them as they approached, which was a good sign that they didn't sense anything suspicious about the two middle aged guests. The only thing these agents were really taking note of, was what they were wearing. And, upon seeing that they were not wearing leather jackets with matching hats, the agents could tell that two people weren't the ones they were looking for.

"I thought the android was a little out of theme, but now that you're here, I guess it makes perfect sense. Still, I would usually only expect this kind of thing in the future world area."

"Excuse me?" the agent asked with a tone laced with a subtle hint of sarcasm and the hidden thought that the person talking to her must be senile.

"Your android hunters aren't you? From that new movie, right? We saw the android inside. Very cool costume! It looked incredibly real!"

Android? Just what was this moron talking about? "You wanna run that by me again?" the agent asked, clearly more interested in what he'd had to say than when he'd first started talking to her.

"You aren't android hunters?"

"We actually not affiliated with the park," the other agent clarified.

"Oh, so sorry then… I just saw your costumes and thought that… oh, never mind," the older man said, turning away from the agents.

"No, wait!" the agent called after him. "Can you tell me more about this android that you saw?"

"There's not much to tell, it was just passing through. We didn't hear much from the other people who saw it either."

"How long ago was this?" the agent asked quickly."

"About five minutes ago."

"Zeta," the agent hissed. Without even thanking the man for the helpful information she raced into the exit with her partner, phoning for backup as they hurried inside of the temple. They'd only gone a short distance before they ran into another couple who were on their way out from the ride.

"Wow, it must be really hard tiring to be in character all day long… especially with all of this running that you're doing, but if you're hunting for the metal man and the girl, we should warn you that they just went out ahead of us," the man informed the agents, pointing in the direction that the agents had just run from.

"Oh my gosh! That was them!" the agent cried, looking horrified at her partner. How could they have been tricked so easily! Zeta had cleverly led them to believe that he was still inside of the attraction while he actually made a break for it once they tried to go in after them. "Thanks!" she shouted over her shoulder to the couple as they turned around to go and chase down the middle aged couple again.

Excited in the pursuit they followed closely behind the agents. Then, as the agents took off after the older couple, Zee and Ro began to run in the opposite direction.


	5. Chapter 5

"Hold on a sec," her partner stopped her by reaching his hand out and holding her shoulder. "This could be another trick." He quickly turned around to look back at the couple who had given them the tip. But, they weren't near the exit where they'd left them last. He spun around, searching for them. "There they are!" he pointed to the couple who was hurrying away from the scene.

"We'll split up! You go check them out and I'll keep an eye on these two!"

The agent began to push his way through the crowd just as his partner was reaching out to touch the shoulder of the first couple. Her hand rested on something tangible and real. This couldn't be them unless they'd managed to get new disguises while they were in the line. "Yes?" the man asked, turning around upon feeling someone touching him.

"Sorry," the agent apologized. Then without explaining why she'd felt the need to touch his shoulder, she turned around and hurried after her partner, speaking loudly into her radio, "Bennet! This is Angela! We've been tricked! They're heading down your way, and they're not wearing the jackets!"

Bennet didn't have a second to ask why they'd allowed themselves to be so easily fooled but began giving out orders to establish a blockade. "Keep after them! Don't lose sight of them!"

Ro and Zee hurried through the crowd, briefly glancing behind them as they'd started running. "Slow down," Zee said, bringing their run down to just really long strides. Ro kept trying to look over her shoulder at the agents behind them but Zee encouraged her to look forward while he surreptitiously stole a few peeks at the agents behind them. Things appeared to be going as planned as both agents took off after the other couple, but now that one of the agents had stopped, it was clear that they hadn't fooled them entirely--the agents were splitting up. "Okay, this isn't going to work out so nicely… Run!"

Running-- it was something that she was good at. She bolted, with Zee right behind her. At least they'd gotten a little bit of a head start over the agents. But, as they saw Bennet anxiously waiting for them at the exit that led out of this area of the park it was clear that while they were fast runners they couldn't outrun the speed or radio waves.

"Uh-oh! Blockade!" Ro cried out. She began to turn around, feeling more inclined to take their chances with the agents behind them, but Zee turned her around as he grabbed her hand and continued to run with her toward Bennet's party.

It was so easy to admire him for couldn't for his bravery, or was his bravery just overconfidence in his own strength? His existence didn't seem as fragile as hers. Life to him was a matter of electrical charges and advanced computer programming. He could easily repair himself if he was damaged. She, however, was not indestructible. She knew that he was always concerned for her safety, but running right towards a blockade of agents didn't seem the safest route to her at the moment. Still, Zee usually knew what he was doing.

"Zee you sure this is a good idea?" she asked. She was sure that the only thing that was preventing Bennet from opening fire on them was all of the other people that were so closely packed around them. But, now as they'd started running through the crowd, everyone was parting away from them, thus removing their cover.

"I hope so," he replied.

"Hope so," isn't very comforting. How about a definitive answer?"

"That would be lying."

"We're doomed…" Ro sighed.

As they were getting closer, Bennet and his men raised their firing arms. Their hologram disguises weren't doing them any good as at least two people on Bennet's team had their holoviewers out. Not to mention the agents behind them were watching their every move. Still, as they were the only ones running, it was pretty clear that they were the ones. Their holograms disappeared, but not because Zee realized that they were useless. Whenever he was going to do something in which he would be extending his arms or legs to great lengths he removed his hologram.

The crowd around them had really thinned out. They were practically running out in the open now. In fact, everyone was making a circle around the agents and them. Most people thought that this was another daytime show, while others had clued in on the seriousness of the case and these were real agents after a real criminal and not some performance. These were the people standing at the back of the circle. They weren't running away for fear that they were wrong and might miss out on something completely awesome, but they also didn't want to risk getting too close to the action.

Open space, it was just what he needed. "Sorry Ro," he apologized in advance.

She never even realized what had happened. One moment she was running with Zee holding her hand, and then the next her leg was pulled out from under her and she was being swung around in a circle! Just as a parent would swing their child around as if they were an airplane. "Zeeeeeeeee!" she started to scream. Then after only two turns around he released her. Her arms were flailing everywhere and she was kicking her legs in the air as she went soaring over Bennet's party.

Her mind was torn between worrying about how she was going to land after being tossed several feet through the air, and having the agent's shoot her as she was helplessly flying over their heads. It happened so quickly that she didn't have a chance to see the agent's ducking for clearance as her body flew over their heads, followed by Zee's cat-like leap after her.

He'd tossed her first as a distraction then he'd taken a giant leap. His arms extended to catch Ro and pull her into him as his legs extended to give himself enough of a boost over the agents as well. His arms wrapped around her, and he pulled her in close to his body. Then his legs wrapped around her. Securely wrapped up in titanium armor, Ro felt themselves go rolling across the ground in their crash landing. When they stopped rolling, Zee stood up quickly, "Are you hurt?"

"No, but you're going to be…" she mumbled, shakily standing up. How many times before had she told him before he wasn't exactly what she'd call an airbag and that she wasn't a Frisbee?

He'd figured she'd be mad with him, but he could let her scold him later. Now they had to get away from the agents. "This way!" he pulled her behind him.

The contrast in the landscaping was most distinguished by the red colored rock formations that surrounded them and the log fencing. They were in a wilderness sort of country. There were really old saloon style buildings with upbeat piano music playing in the background. Still, they didn't spend much time in this area. They ran straight through and found themselves right back in the area with the buildings with the thatched roofs….

"We're running in circles!" Ro panted.

"I know," Zee replied. He could only hope that Bennet would be just as surprised. One thing he was noticing as of recently, was that Bennet was becoming better at predicting their movements. With any luck, Bennet would have thought ahead that Zee wouldn't be "stupid" enough to run around in a circle and that he would have set up defenses in another area of the park, rather than at the place where they'd originally been discovered. Still, as Bennet was right behind them he might have called ahead on his radio to tell his crew where it seemed like they were heading. And, as he had so many more crew members with him today it wouldn't be too difficult to move his agents around the park. Not to mention, everyone on the park staff was probably looking for them too.

From having been in this area once before Ro had a vague idea of where they were heading, but with Zee, rarely did anything ever turn out as it usually appeared. And she was right to not assume that she knew where Zee was taking them. At first she'd thought that he was going to lead them to the futuristic world where they'd blend in better, but as he recovered his hologram she knew this wasn't going to happen. Then, as he made a sharp turn and started leading her in deeper into the fantasy world, it was clear he was looking for some place here to hide.

They were coming up to medium sized building, no wait, it wasn't a building but a castle! Hadn't they already learned their lesson about getting stuck in small one-way turrets? The agents were behind them but as the princesses of the fantasy world were out signing autographs and taking pictures there was a large crowd of people that they had to push through, just as Zee and Ro had.

Zee pulled Ro behind a large vending cart. The bot at the cart began reciting the sales pitch until Ro gave it an icy look. The bot sensed her enmity and immediately left them to go bother someone else with its sales pitch.

"You really have a way with machines," Zee commented.

"I think it comes from experience."

Zee smiled, but then returned to the task of finding a good hiding spot as they couldn't stay crouched behind the vending cart for the rest of the day. His gaze was drawn to a dark doorway. There was a large wooden door concealed behind a pair of hanging flags. From the small, nearly invisible spider webs he could see that this door was not frequently used. He began to analyze the surrounding area. Was this a closet door, the back door to one of the many shops, or maybe it was just a large door for decorative purposes only?

"Follow me," he said, creeping out from behind the cart. He kept a careful eye out for Bennet. If they dashed for the door quickly, no one would see them.

They hurried to the door. Just from Zee's quick movements it was clear that they were in a hurry so as not to be seen. Ro tried to open it as she was accustomed to doing, but it was locked. Immediately she stepped back to let Zee do his thing, pressing herself up against the wall of the small entry way outside the door to stay hidden.

Zee looked for a port to patch into, but from what he could see, there was none! "There's no computer port," he commented, still searching for it.

"You're kidding me, right?" Ro asked as she stepped forward to look more closely at the door.

As Zee looked at the handle of the door he saw a small slit opening under the handle. This door had to be for decoration only. It hadn't be used in such a long time that no one had bothered to replace the old fashioned key-opened lock with a computerized system as they had with every other door in the park. But then again, why put a lock on a door unless it was meant to be kept shut at certain times, then open during others? He stared at the key opening. It had grooved slits, thus meaning that it was not just there to give the appearance of being locked, but that the matching key, could open it.

The hologram over his hand disappeared as a lock pick extended out of the tip of his finger. The lock clicked, signifying that Zee had unlocked the door. He pressed his whole weight up against the door. The large hinges had rusted shut so the door was resistant to open at first, but as Ro pressed her weight against it as well, the door slowly creaked open. As soon as the door was opened far enough for Ro to slip through, Zee minimized his body then followed after her. It was a tight squeeze, but they didn't want to attract a lot of attention by opening the door any wider.

Once inside Ro took a couple of steps backwards. Surprisingly there was plenty of room to stand around in so she doubted that this was just a small storage closet. From the small amount of light coming in through the door she couldn't yet decipher where they were. And as Zee shut the door behind them, relocking it, everything turned black.

"Where are you, Zee?" Ro whispered. She couldn't see him at all, as if she were blind. She was talking in a hushed tone so that no one would hear their voices behind the castle door.

"I'm here," he said quietly, reaching out for her hand. Initially he'd had his night vision on, but as there was no light at all in the room to remotely register, he switched to his infrared vision which illuminated everything on his visual sensors.

"Oh my," he commented, surprised.

'What?" Ro asked, a small hint of fear in her voice. Being unable to see anything made her feel especially vulnerable, not to mention they'd just entered blindly into an unknown environment. Who knew how many spiders were hanging right over he head at this very moment?

"We're in some passageway," he commented.

"I'll have to take your word for it considering I can't see anything."

Zee looked around for a light switch, but it was a wasted effort. No one would put a light switch in a convenient location where any person could see it and randomly turn off the lights. He looked around for any overhead light fixtures in general. There weren't any. "I don't see any light sources. And it might not be a good idea to turn on any lights in here. It might let the agents know where we are. But if you need light, I do have…"

Ro quickly reached out and put her hands over his chest. "Not so bright this time," she warned him.

"Oh right," he said remember the instance with the No-Techs. Ro removed her hands and a very faint glow emanated from his chest area. "How's this?" he asked.

"A little brighter. Even movie theaters give you more light to find your way out in the dark than this…" Zee increased the power to his light and it grew brighter. He might have thought to wait until Ro wasn't staring right at it when he did so, but it was a little late for that now.

"That'll be fine as soon as all these spots go away," Ro said, rubbing her eyes until the light spots went away. It'd felt like having someone shine a flashlight right in her eyes. She blinked a few times and then her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. "So, what is this place?" Ro asked heading over toward a pedestal-type object.

Zee followed her, his light shining in whatever direction his was facing. He stood behind her so that she could see the object in front of her more clearly. On top of the pedestal was a large book under a glass display case. The cover of the book appeared to be made out of gold and was richly decorated with jewels.

"Looks like the cover of the Lindau Gospel or maybe the Lindisfarne or Kell manuscripts," Zee commented, referring to some ancient texts that also had richly decorated covers and illustrated pages. The heavy cursive and flourished letters made the title of the book hard to make out in the dark. Ro didn't bother to piece the letters together and see if Zee was correct, but continued forward in the passageway. As Zee didn't quite have his light facing the direction she took off in, she nearly tripped on the first step of a flight of an ascending staircase. Apparently, they weren't in a long passageway, but in another short entry way. Ro stepped up onto the first stair. "Wonder where this leads," she commented, taking another step. She climbed the stairs quickly with Zee's light now illuminating the area in front of her.

Her head hung down as she carefully watched where she was placing her feet. When she looked up at the top of the stairs, she had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from screaming in startled fright. The freakish figure hung in front of her behind the glass window. It looked like the dead body of someone who's just been hung. But, after looking at the figure, she saw that this was not a corpse, but just a doll, one that was falling apart from years and years of neglected maintenance or proper preservation.

The doll had long blonde hair with matching lashes, and was suspended by a thin line from the ceiling. One of her feet had broken off and was completely missing and her dress looked moth eaten and grayed. Time had certainly ruined the youth of the young girl that the doll was portraying. It especially seemed saddening as the doll looked like it wanted to dance, but couldn't because its foot was missing and it was hanging dead still from having not been disturbed in years. The forest animals around her were in worse shape. The fur-like coverings had completely corroded through exposing their mechanical skeletons and wirings. It was sickening. The young man in the background who was secretly watching the damsel through the bushes looked almost as awful. Rather than having a nice head of hair, it looked like a rat had crawled up on his head and died. Just what exactly was this display that they were looking at?

"What is all this?" Ro asked.

"It appears to have been some kind of gallery or attraction at some time. From the looks of things, it hasn't been open in years."

"Why do you suppose that is?" Ro couldn't help but ask. While the scene looked fairly gruesome at first, with proper lighting and some nice background music and after a major refurbishing job, she would imagine that walking through a castle and watching a princess dance in a forest would actually be kind of nice.

"While I don't have the official details, the first thing that comes to mind is that this isn't in compliance with regulations for handicap accessibility."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Ro glared at him. He should know by now that she hated it when he got all technical like this.

"It's not hoverchair accessible. You'd never be able to get a hoverchair through here."

"So?"

"It's the kind of thing that people with too much free time file lawsuits about. They go around looking for disability cases to file claims under, and ruin things for everyone else just so they can get a couple of dollars by pretending to be unfairly discriminated against."

"I'm not following you."

Zee searched his database of files to see if he had news articles or specific files that were referenced to his knowledge of such regulations. There were two "instances" or files that were referenced to this bit of knowledge. He recited one of the instances for Ro, "Say you go into a public restroom."

"Oh heaven forbid…" Ro interrupted. Public restrooms were the most disgusting things ever. And it was so unfortunate that they were forced to visit them sometimes because they were always on the run.

"And while in the restroom you notice that there are not toilet seat liners."

"Okay…and your point Is?" Ro urged him to get to the moral of the story. He'd barely told more than a sentence of the story, but already she thought she could tell that he wasn't going to be getting to the point soon from the way he was already going off on frivolous details.

"That is the point."

"You know, you're supposed to be helping me understand this, not making me more confused with more random stories…"

"There's no toilet seat covers because some disabled person noticed that the dispenser in the handicapped stall wasn't mounted at the regulated standard height for toilet seat cover dispensers in handicap stalls, so they sued the person who's responsible for the restroom maintenance. And as there was another law that said that it was not required to have toilet seat covers, the person then decided to get rid of them entirely."

"Well, why not just fix the problem and put them at the right height?"

"That would cost money. And if they're not required to have them, why go to the trouble?"

"So what would happen if the company just said that they weren't going to do a thing about it?"

"Then they'd be charged a large fine every day that the problem wasn't remedied, or they'd be forced to pay settlement to every person who complained about the problem."

"And if they couldn't afford to pay that kind of money?"

"Then they'd go bankrupt or would be forced to close."

"Well, that's just stupid! What jerks… They make everyone else have to do without because someone mounted it at 45" from the floor rather than 36"?" She was making up the measurements to get her point across. She doubted even Zee knew the correct measurements. The story he was telling didn't seem like the kind where he had all of the factual data to go with it.

"You can't just say that. You have to look at things from their point of view. Do you think they want to be handicapped?"

"No, but still! Why don't they just ask nicely for them to lower or raise the dispensers rather than making such a big deal about it?"

"Money Ro. They do it for the creds."

Ro thought she finally understood now. "So you're saying because this isn't handicap accessible, because of the stairs, that someone probably sued this place because they couldn't go through the attraction so the place just closed it because they didn't want to remodel it?"

"That would be my guess."

While it would have seemed deserving of the company to have to pay royalties in a law settlement, it still seemed more wrong that everyone else should be denied this experience as a result of that. "That's so stupid!" Ro said angrily.

He could see that she was definitely upset about this, so he had to calm her down. "Now, it was just an idea. We don't know for sure if this is what happened…"

"I really wouldn't be surprised if it were though… But then again, I don't think she broke her leg from just hanging there for all of these years. Seems like they weren't taking good care of it when it was open."

"Probably didn't seem worth the maintenance costs."

Rather than uselessly debating the issue, Ro continued forward, but stopped after having only taking a few steps. "Zee, before we go any further, should we be worried about setting off any alarms or laser traps?" she asked cautiously.

Zee turned on each of his different alarm detection devices. There weren't any vid cameras mounted to the ceiling or on the walls. He didn't detect any red glowing laser lines on the floor or at chest level height. The hallway they were standing in was completely bare. Other than the lock on the door, there didn't appear to be any kind of security system. "There's doesn't appear to be any kind of monitoring system. I would assume that it's completely safe to go forward."

"Seriously?" Ro asked. "Nothing?"

Zee rescanned the area just to be sure. " Nothing. I don't see anything."

"What luck! We can stay here for the rest of the day then!" she announced happily.

"You may be right," he agreed. With no cameras or security system for them to set off, they could just stay there for a couple of hours or until Bennet left. But, then how could they get out of the park after hours without being seen? Someone would surely notice them if they were the only ones leaving the park late in the middle of the night—unless they tried to pretend that they were security guards who were off at the end of their shift. It might work, if Bennet didn't leave standing orders for the park to watch for them to do such a thing. Or maybe they could wait over night and sneak out of the park the next day? No—that wouldn't work, he couldn't make Ro wait things out that long. While he knew

she wouldn't mind spending the night in a castle, he couldn't let her go without food for that many hours as he didn't want to risk sneaking in and out of the castle to get food. Not to mention he knew Ro was eventually going to get bored with the window displays. His internal conscience told him not to, but he couldn't help but thinking that if he were asked to bet how long it would be until she did get bored, his answer would be around two hours and thirteen minutes.

"If we don't come up with any other way to get out of the park before it closes, then I'll consider it, but I'd rather get out of here as soon as possible and leave Bennet wandering around the park until closing, thinking that we're still in it hiding somewhere."

"Well, I'm out of ideas for the time being. Let me know if you think of something…" Ro trailed off as she went searching for the next window.Not only was she curious to see if there were any more displays, and what they were, but the further they moved away from the door the less likely someone would overhear them talking behind it. Zee followed behind her, just like a homeless puppy.

Keeping her hand on the right wall for stability she stopped when her hand felt a depression in the wall, and then the smooth, cold glass of another display window.

Zee took his place behind her, but she still couldn't see into the window. "I think we should risk a little more light," she commented. Zee turned up his light even more. Instead of having a flashlight effect he now had a lantern light effect coming from his chest.

The scene inside of this window was of the princess heading up a miniature flight of stairs, following an iridescent pom-pom on a metal wire that was sticking out of the wall. Ro then finally realized what the title of the book and been, and what the theme of the windows were. "It's Sleeping Beauty," she informed Zee.

"Sleeping Beauty?" he repeated, a little confused. "That doesn't make any sense… I thought we'd decided this was Snow White's castle because of the wishing well that was off on the side of the castle?"

Ro realized now that she'd assumed wrong when she'd told Zee that. It hadn't actually been a "we decided" type of discussion, but that she'd told him what to think in this matter. But, she hadn't just told him this was Snow White's castle, "just because." She actually had several facts to back up her opinion on this matter. Mainly her priority reasoning was that there was a wishing well, but also from what she'd seen of the movies, this castle didn't look like it could belong to any other princess. After all, wasn't Sleeping Beauty's castle supposed to have a really tall tower? And didn't Cinderella's castle have three tall, rectangular towers with a really large clock on the center one… Or at least based on the Cinderella TV series, Cinderella's castle was supposed to be all pink! And this castle didn't have the French styling with the large buttresses and domed dance hall to belong to the wannabe-anamorph princess.

"Guess I was wrong…" she casually declared.

"Maybe that's why they closed it? So people didn't get confused as to whose castle it was."

"Then why didn't they redo the interior to match?" Ro began to ask, but then she answered her own question, "oh right, money…"

They moved onto the next window. Actually, it wasn't a window but a bunch of boards placed up over the window. Ro noticed for the first time that there were mounted display cases next to the windows, containing colored storybook pages describing the event in the window scenes. The story for this window said that it should have been a scene of the heroic prince slaying the evil dragon.

As Ro eagerly moved onto the next window, she nearly fell down a flight of stairs, but luckily Zee caught her and saved her from breaking a leg. The stairs were heading down, which meant that they were nearing the end of the castle tour, and that the story was coming to a close. "We're getting close to the exit, we should be a little more careful," Zee reminded her. He turned down his light just a little to be sure that if they suddenly did turn a corner and there was a window leading to the outside, that no one would see the light inside. So far there hadn't been any windows, but they could never be sure.

The next display window showed the scene of where the prince was bending over to awaken the princess. His lips were less than an inch away from hers in the scene. Ro almost wanted to tell Zee to break the glass so she could rush forward and pull their heads together the rest of the way. It just seemed so disappointing that he was so close to kissing his princess and breaking the spell, but that he was frozen still in time. It was like the fairies accidentally put him to sleep along with the rest of the castle…

"Next window," Ro announced moving on. She knew how the story ended and that if they hurried on there would be a happy ending waiting for them. And, she was right. The last window was of the prince dancing with the princess. The princess's dress sparkled when Zee's light illuminated it, which made the painted background seem dull in comparison. Just a few feet below them, down another flight of stairs, Ro could see a very faint crack of light coming in from what had to be the exit door.

"The end," she announced in reference to the story, and their journey through the castle.

"Should we go through it again from the beginning?" Zee asked her.

Ro didn't reply though. The last scene of the princess dancing with the prince had stirred up several thoughts and ideas in her mind. This wasn't the first time they'd seen dancing princesses and princes today—and it wasn't going to be the last.

"I have an idea of how to get out of here," she announced excitedly, then quickly added. "What time is it?"

Zee checked his internal clock, "It's 5:38 p.m." He left off the seconds unit as well as the fact that they were in the Pacific coast time zone.

"When did you say that the evening parade ran at?"

He hadn't mentioned the time exactly earlier but that didn't matter. "There's one at 6:30 parade and at 8:30, and one more at…"

Ro interrupted him but not with the intention to be rude. It was more because she suddenly began to talk out loud to herself. "Six thirty, that gives us less than an hour…"

"Less than an hour to do what?" he asked. For once he was surprised that Ro had come up with an ingenious escape plan before he had.

"Okay, here's the plan…"


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

They made their way back through the castle. On the way back Ro noticed that they'd missed several of the displays, but they didn't have time to look at them. While an hour seemed like plenty of time, her plan wouldn't work if something came up and they ended up missing their deadline.

Rather than seeing where the exit for this attraction was, Zee had felt that it would be best if they exited out the way they came in rather than finding out if the exit for the attraction was right outside a well populated area, or if it was also conveniently concealed behind a vending cart.

Once they got to the door Zee opened it a crack and used his finger camera to check out the area. As they'd been hiding for some time, it also meant that Bennet could have had his agents go into hiding in the area as well. He'd do a careful scan of everyone in the area to make sure that there weren't any agents in hiding before he and Ro emerged from the safety of the castle. And such a scan would take a couple minutes as he wouldn't be able to tell immediately if someone was purposely standing around because they were waiting for someone to meet them there or for them to get off the ride, or if they were standing around because they'd been told to use that position for a stake out.

It was a few minutes, as Zee had said it would take him, before he declared that there were still several agents in the area.

"You think if we waited a little longer they'd go away?"

"No, they look pretty settled in. Bennet's not giving up. He still thinks we're in the park."

"And he'd be right…" Ro conceded unhappily. "So where are they?" she asked.

"A pair of them are over by the flying elephant ride, and the other are pretending to be shopping at the storybook gift store."

"So we should sneak around the side of the castle to not be seen then."

"If there aren't any agents around the side of the castle then that would be fine. But, I can't see if there are any because my vision's blocked by the walls of the entryway."

"Let's hope that there isn't then," Ro said pulling the door open a little further. With that Zee placed his arm on Ro's shoulder and they opened the door the rest of the way, and walked out of it, dressed as park personnel. Zee quickly closed and locked the door behind them then began to hurry with Ro around the side of the castle.

"No agents," Zee declared, sounding a little surprised.

"Pity, and I'd really been looking forward to diving off into the moat to swim away for our escape," Ro said, intentional sarcasm dripping from every word.

The princesses that were usually grouped around the front of the castle were gone. It wouldn't do well to have them out while the parade was in progress. Some child might start to wonder how the princesses could be in two places at once, or how they'd managed to run and change into their parade costumes so quickly. This only affected her plan in that they didn't have an extra large swarm of people as crowd coverage. Instead they'd just have to deal with a large swarm of people who were already lining up for the parade.

They stepped out onto the main street of people and joined the large throng of people who were heading up the street. Ro spotted a balloon vendor bot.

"There's one!"

Zee went up to the bot with his cred card out and ready. "Hi, we'd like to buy all of your balloons," he informed the bot politely.

"All of them?" the bot repeated. This would be the first time anyone had ever asked to buy the entire set of balloons, and more strangely, why was an employee asking to purchase the balloons?

"Yes, all of them."

As the bot wasn't sure how many balloons it currently had in its inventory, or that were tied around its arm, it began counting them out loud, naming the total price after each balloon.

As Ro nervously looked around at the people who were now attracted to the bot that seemed to be broken as it was randomly counting out dollar amounts, Ro tugged on Zee's arm. "We're making a scene. Just pay him and let's go."

Zee counted the strings tied around the bot's arm in a single glance. "Thirty nine balloons." He reached out and picked up the bot's cred counter and swiped his card through. After handing back the bot's cred counter, her reached out and took hold of the entire bunch of balloon strings with one hand. With his other hand, he made a scissor like motion with his fingers, which cut through the strings, detaching the balloons.

"Thanks," Ro said quickly, then grabbed half of the balloons out of Zee's hand and began to hurry down the street with him. Out of inventory, the bot hurried off to go and get more balloons, after all before the parades were a prime time for sales.

Using the floating balloons as facial cover they began to make their way up the street again. As they couldn't see where they were going with the balloons in front of their faces she'd have to watch the ground closely to make sure that they didn't accidentally walk into the person in front of them while Zee continued to scout for agents.

"Excuse me…" someone approached them. Ro's blood turned cold. They were caught! "…can I get a balloon?" the father asked her.

Ro turned to look at the man then down at his daughter who was holding his hand tightly, looking rather shy. She smiled at the girl then at her father, relieved that they weren't agents, "Of course."

"What do I owe you?"

She looked over at Zee. She nor Zee had either of their cred acceptors on them, so there wasn't any real way that they could take the man's money. "For you, it's free," she winked at the little girl, then surrendered one of the balloons. "Enjoy the parade!"

Having taken care of that situation they walked a little faster down the street to deter anyone else from wanting to buy a balloon from them. The street led them around the large snow covered slopes of the abominable snowman's mountain and past the underwater submarine, "Search for Atlantis" ride.

Then, everything around them turned to clear or white plastic with outrageous metallic shaded highlights or iridescent streaks running through them. They were back in the future area. "Looks like we made it here okay," Ro sighed.

"What should we do with the balloons?" Zee asked.

"Give them away."

When word got out that the balloons were free, Ro found that she didn't have to worry about handing them out. People started coming up to her and grabbing them out of her hands! "How rude!" Ro breathed heavily to Zee once all of their balloons had been taken.

Zee actually had to agree with her on that one. But, if anyone of those people hadn't been grabby and had been passive then they wouldn't have gotten a balloon at all as there was such a high demand for the free item.

"There's the gate, and a security officer."

Zee stared at the man, who was standing in front of the partially concealed large gates. "He's just a parade dispatcher," he corrected her, "but he'll still call us in if he recognizes us."

"There has to be another way in."

If they could find a computer that was connected to the park system then he'd be able to find out if there was another way in. But, if they did find a computer connected to the park system, the wouldn't have to worry about finding a way in as they'd then be able to carry out "plan B" instead.

They moved away from the gate so that it didn't seem like they were suspiciously loitering by it. Zee quickly scanned the area, taking careful note of where the park employees were. He saw two employees walking off together from behind the Space Grill Center. "Follow me," Zee instructed Ro.

With his hand still on her shoulder they walked over toward the space grill. Sure enough behind the side of the grill there was a long hallway from the exit lines of one of the rides. At the very end of the hallway was a door labeled, "Cast Members Only." They'd found the entrance to the employee break room.

"Excellent," Ro grinned, and together they walked into the restricted room.

No one seemed to take any note of their entrance as they were all burned out from smiling and acting like working at this place for minimum wage was the greatest thing that had ever happened to them. There were a couple of vending machines, and while the prices were half of what they'd have to pay for a soft drink in the park, she couldn't believe that they didn't just give these poor workers the drinks for free. Heck, if someone were to buy a soft drink and a snack it would practically be one third of an hour of work! And if they were to buy lunch from the small cafeteria on the corner of the room, it would be a complete hour's pay. Hopefully these people were smart enough to bring their own lunch, which meant that there had to be lockers somewhere for them to keep their food in.

Or, why go to raid the locker room when she could see out the tinted window of the break room that there was a large building labeled "Costume Department" just across the way? With the parade in less than half an hour surely there was going to be so much activity going on that no one would notice if there were two more costumed characters walking down the street in the parade with them?

"Hey, Zee, I'm getting another idea… Rather than riding on the underside of one of the parade floats how about marching in the parade?"

"That does sound more favorable, but the agents would see us, remember?"

"Not if we have on the right disguises," Ro hinted, nodding her head for him to look out the window.

"Convenient," he agreed.

"Dress up time!" Ro chimed in a childish voice, tugging on his arm as she led him out of the break room to the costume room.

She wasn't sure how her plan was going to work out in its entirety, but she knew that the parade started at the far end of the park and ended near the entrance of the park. It would only make sense that there would be an employee entrance located somewhere near the parade float storage area or near the front end of the park. Who else could possibly have taken all of the prime parking spots just off to the side of the entrance before the park had even opened? Sneaking out the employee entrance seemed a lot easier than trying to obviously go out the way that they'd come in. Also, it seemed to her that disguising themselves as cast characters would be surprisingly be a lot more discreet to walk around in than leather adventure jackets.

As they got closer to the building Ro noticed that there was a greeter at the door who just happened to be checking IDs. Since there didn't appear to be any real station for the greeter to be checking IDs from Ro guessed that he was just there because of the high security alert as a result of their presence in the park.

"Figures," she muttered.

"Won't be a problem," Zee smiled, "Just hold my hand."

Those were his usual code words meaning that he was planning to get them past the greeter by using one of his regular holomorphic tricks. But, she couldn't help but take him literally and reach out to squeeze his hand rather than just casually touching his elbow or some other form of physical contact that he'd actually been implying by his comment. When someone was feeling as anxious as she was, it was so much more reassuring to have someone's firm hand to hold onto.

The greeter at the door looked rather comfortable as he leaned up against, balancing on two legs of his borrowed office-waiting-room chair. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and his head lowered so that it almost looked like he was taking a nap. It seemed like they were going to be able to walk right past him but right as they walked in front of him, he uncrossed his arms and leaned forward causing the chair legs to slam against the ground.

"Can I see your IDs?" he asked, uncrossing his arms and standing up, straightening his shirt as he did so.

"IDs…" Ro stuttered. She looked to Zee for a suggestion of how to get out of the situation. She was surprised to see that he still looked the same as before they'd held hands. She quickly looked at the clothes she was wearing. She was also still dressed in the park uniform! So, if he wasn't going to change their disguises, then why had he told her to hold hands? Did he forget to change their hologram? No, he wouldn't have forgotten something like that. She was sure that he'd put a disguise over them somehow, it just wasn't the disguise that she'd been expecting.

She'd been expecting him to have turned her into a character and himself into the character greeter that always accompanied the character. Surely with a disguise that generic, the greeter wouldn't have bothered to ask them to see their IDs… Their costumes would have been like an ID by itself.

Or maybe Zee had done the right thing in not making her a character? With the parade starting so soon they may have recalled all of the characters already as they had the princesses, so it would have been strange to see the same character come in twice. Or, depending on how smart this greeter really was, he might have clued in that a character and its greeter might be the perfect disguise for the fugitives that the NSA was looking for?

As she looked to Zee for any ideas on what she was supposed to do now that the guard had asked them for an ID, she noticed that he was holding one of the park IDs in his right hand--complete with his picture on it. On top of that, he was looking at her with an expression that seemed to mock her for not having her ID out as he did. "… I think I've misplaced mine…" Ro stammered. It was fine that he had a perfect ID, but what was she supposed to do?

"Didn't you put it in your pocket?" Zee casually hinted to her.

Ro reached behind herself with her free hand, and as she pulled it back in front of her, she had a park ID in her hand, complete with her picture on it. The ID was weightless, which made the fact that it looked completely real hard to believe as she knew that it didn't exist but was just a holographic projection.

"You're right, I did," Ro said, holding it out for the greeter to glimpse at it but not touch it.

As the IDs looked like park IDs, and from a brief glance the pictures looked like the people who were showing him the IDs, he didn't bother to question them any further but casually waived them by with a flick of his hand. He then sat down again and leaned his chair back up against the wall. Man, this job was boring.

As they entered into the main costume dressing room it became clear as to why the greeter had chosen to stop them rather than letting them go by unchecked. None of the people in this building were actually wearing cast uniforms! In fact, several of the people in this room seemed to be wearing nothing at all! Her innocence was scarred… There were several girls walking around in nothing but their stringy underwear, dances tights, shoes, and strapless bras. Several of the guys were only wearing their tights, which in this case, didn't strike Ro as a "turn on". It looked like they were all out to audition for the main role in "The Emperor's New Clothes." These were the face characters, the people who didn't have to dress up like barnyard animals. There were several more of them still in make-up. They weren't getting their nails done in their underwear though, but in button up shirts and jeans.

It suddenly made sense to Ro. The last thing these performers did was put on their costumes. Why risk getting make-up or wig spray all over their nice costumes from getting dressed before going through make-up? And the reason they were all wearing button up tops was so that they could remove their shirts without ruining their hair from pulling their shirt off over their heads.

The make-up artists and hair dressers were the lucky ones who got to wear anything they wanted to work. However, they had their IDs hanging from their necks to make up for their casual appearance.

The other half of the people in the room were the non face characters. Several of them could be seen hurrying around just in the bottom half of their character costume with their mascot head tucked under one arm. The last group of people were the ones who had just finished with their required stretch workout session and were still getting into their non-face costumes. These people were all wearing gray t-shirts that had little screen printed barcodes on the upper chest area. Apparently the park kept very close track of its costumes if it was even bothering to keep track of the t-shirts that the cast wore underneath their costumes.

"Okay, so my plan to just take some costumes that are lying around isn't going to work out very well seeing as that they even issue out work-out t-shirts. We might have to go back to plan A."

"No we won't," he replied. Making up an ID to get someone to loan them out a costume was child's work for a government infiltration unit as advanced as himself. "We need to find the costume room."

"We're in it, Zee, just look around."

"I mean the room where they actually keep the costumes," he explained.

"Oh, beats me."

"Come on, let's find it."

They started to make their way towards the back of the large room where it looked like someone was handing out the gray t-shirts, which also might mean that they were also handing out the costumes, but someone suddenly reached out and grabbed Ro's arm. "There you are Rachel! You were supposed to check into make-up ten minutes ago!"

"Who, me?" Ro asked, turning around to see who it was that had stopped her.

But, she never got a chance to see who it was that had stopped her as she was then pushed into the make-up chair then surrounded by a swarm of make-up artists. It was impossible to tell which one, if any of them, had been the one who'd stopped her. As she began protesting that they had her confused with someone else she was simply told to, "stop talking," by the person who was finding it hard to apply lipstick to someone who was continually talking.

In less than ten minutes, Ro found herself the victim of a complete make-over. She guessed that when someone did this several times a day 7 days a week that it was easy to become so good at it that they could do it in just ten minutes. "They're waiting for you at costumes," one of the women said to her as they lowered the chair so she could hurry over there.

"What just happened?" Ro asked Zee as soon as she escaped from the women.

"You just had your make-up and hair done by a professional team of dressers."

"But they wouldn't even give me a chance to tell them that I'm not this Rachel girl!"

"Too late now. Just be grateful that during that whole time you were sitting in front of them not one of them looked like they recognized you."

"You have a point."

"Help me get this wig off and then we can…"

"Rachel!" she was interrupted. It was someone across the room calling to her.

"What do I do?" she asked Zee.

But, his idea for her to run was thwarted as a group of dressers from the wardrobe department suddenly ran to Ro's side to guide her away from Zee and over to the costume side of the room. "Zee?" she called out, looking behind her. "Zee?" Where had he gone? He'd been right behind her a second ago! "Zee?"

"I'm right here," someone whispered into her ear.

She glanced at the person who was holding her elbow, gently guiding her over to the wardrobe department along with the other dressers around her. She recognized the dark haired woman with the deep blue eyes immediately. "Zee?"

"Shhh," he whispered to her. With so much activity going on it had been all too easy to change his hologram to be one of the dressers. This way he was in a better disguise and he could stay close to her as they dragged her off to different parts of the costume room.

"Rachel, so glad that you finally made it. I've got your costume right here… " the person holding her costume began to explain, but despite all of the make-up she was wearing and the long blonde wig he realized a second after looking at her up close, that she wasn't actually Rachel. "Wait…did you trade shifts with Rachel?"

"She's the back up. Rachel called saying there was an accident on the freeway and that everything's totally blocked so she wasn't sure if she'd make it on time for the 5:30," one of the dressers explained, but, it wasn't Zee.

"Well since there's no time to call and find out where she's at, we'll go with it," the guy said, then handed Ro the costume.

Ro looked horrified for a moment as she realized what costume she was holding. No way was she going into this parade dressed as Princess Lina! "…I…" she began to stammer.

"I'll help you get undressed," Zee offered, guiding her off to a private corner in the room where there was a single partition set up for someone to change behind.

Ro was actually very thankful because if he hadn't those other dressers might just have started ripping her clothes off of her! "Zee, I can't do this!"

"You're going to have to Ro. "

"What! You did NOT just say that you're encouraging this!"

"If we let them know that you're not really the back up they're going to know something's not right. Besides, they won't be able to call in another back up and get her dressed in time for the parade. If this parade starts and there are only eleven dancing princesses, someone definitely is going to realize something is wrong," he explained quickly.

"But I don't know the routine! And it's their fault! They just attacked me! They violated me!"

"Lina was the youngest princess. You'll be in the back. You can just follow the people in front of you."

"But I'll still have to dance with another guy!"

"Ro, we don't have time to discuss this. Now, I'm sorry, but…"

"Zee!" she hissed as he suddenly made a quick cut up the back of her shirt with a pair of scissors he'd unnoticing picked out one of the dresser's aprons while they were crowded around Ro.

No one could see it as the hologram of the park shirt was still covering her skin, but from the draft she could feel flow around her skin she knew her back was exposed.

"Zee! That was my favorite shirt!" she cried over dramatically.

"I'll get you another one on the way out of town. It's only been a day since we bought it so I'm sure there'll still be another one left."

"You're not being very sympathetic here," she calmed down. So he'd called her bluff as that it really wasn't her favorite shirt, and they had just bought it, but still. She'd imagined them just walking around wearing a large bulky costumes, just waving at all of the people and giving high-fives to the people with their arms sticking out. She hadn't been planning on stealing a role this large!

"There wasn't enough time to try and pull it over your head without ruining your hair. Now, pull your arms through your bra straps," he said, a small hint of embarrassment in his voice.

Her bra was instantly converted to a strapless bra. Zee took the dress from her and slid it on over her head. The remnants of her shirt fell onto the ground, which Zee quickly picked up before anyone could see them. He'd have to find her a new shirt to wear for when they got to the end of the parade and she'd have to take the costume off.

"I'm surprised it fits," Ro commented in reference to the dress as she began to pull her jeans off before someone came along to cut them off.

"Hand me the bracelet," he instructed her next, ignoring her comment. He was just as bad as the real dressers!

She removed it quickly and handed it to him. "You'll have to let the dressers finish, I need to take care of these," he said, then left her.

"Zee… "Ro pouted. Now that Zee had left other dressers rushed over to her to finish up the job as she stepped out from behind the partition.

She just stood there with her arms out as the dressers began lacing up the back of the dress as well as tying the line of bows down her sleeves. This may well be the first time in her life that someone else was dressing her. And after she initially got over the feeling of being harassed, it actually was nice to not have to do anything to get dressed.

Zee wrapped up the slashed t-shirt inside of the jeans as well as bracelet so that no one could see them. He was looking for a potential disguise that he could use himself when the sound of a group of confused people trying to make some sense out of their discussion caught his attention.

"I told you, we already took care of Lina, several minutes ago," one of the make-up artists was trying to explain to a young woman.

"Are you sure? Because I was called in because someone told me that

you were going to need a back up to do Lina."

An alarm went of in Zee's mind. This was the real back up. He'd have to think of something to save Ro's cover. But, on a side note, he had to admit now, that upon seeing the back up, he could tell why they'd mistaken Ro for Lina's character. Both Ro and this woman had short blonde hair. Both had similar face shapes, cheek bone placement, small noses, nice almond shaped eyes, and a small body structure.

"..and I got in my car as soon as they called, and I would have been here earlier but there was some guy with Brandon—said he was in the national guard or something, and he was giving everyone, including me, a hard time getting through checkpoint!" the woman continued with her story.

National guard? Or National Security Agency? They'd have to be on the watch for agents, as if they weren't already watchful enough. Zee read the girl's name on her ID tag. "Alicia?" he called her attention.

She turned to him. She didn't recognize him but there were so many dressers and depending on what day of the week that she came on or what she was being dressed for it would be hard to get to know more than a handful of them. "Are you the one who called me in?" she asked almost accusatively. She sounded very frustrated and confused. Not to mention if the parade was starting in less than fifteen minutes she was going to need the entire costume department's staff to get her ready in time.

"No, but everything's fine now. You were called in because they thought that Rachel wasn't going to make it on time, but she did make it. She's nearly finished being dressed in costuming now. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you'd like you can go rest in the break room and tell them I said to give you a free lunch or something, okay?"

His story was believable, but she still looked upset at having been called in only to find out that she wasn't needed. Luckily, as she'd done this parade so many times before it wasn't like she was going to be disappointed at not getting to be in it. Besides, as labor laws stated, if she went straight back home now they'd still be required to pay her for four hours pay just for the inconvenience.

"Thank you for clearing this mess up," she said, then turned to leave.

Everything would be fine now or at least until the real Rachel showed up… Hopefully she really was going to be late because of the traffic or that the security guard at the gate would give her a hard time too.

With Alicia gone he set off to find something to do with Ro's clothes. While he was considering stashing them somewhere in the building that wouldn't be very helpful if they weren't planning on coming back here with the rest of the parade staff but were going to sneak out once they got to the front end of the parade. The other thing he had to consider now was how was he going to get into the parade?

He began to hurry back towards the costume room. A hologram wouldn't do as the agents would be able to see through it with their holoviewers. He'd just have to follow through with Ro's secondary plan. Her original plan had been fairly complicated and was too late to execute now.

Originally her idea had been to convince a group of people that they were special volunteers to be background actors for a promotional theatrical trailer of the new space movie that would be coming out. The movie featured a star command group (the agents) that were looking for the metallic space invader (him) which had taken a victim hostage which it was planning to abduct and take back to its home planet. The story line was all too familiar.

If they bribed them with free park t-shits or "costumes" for the show she was sure that they could get anyone to go running up to the agents that they pointed out and start dragging them off to one area of the park saying that they'd seen the space invader that they were looking for. And, if the people told the agents what they wanted to hear--that they'd seen a metal man with a young girl with blonde hair—she was certain they'd be able to draw the agents away onto one half of the park. Then, they'd find one of the park phones and would tap into the line and would plant a false message pretending to be one of the park members saying that they'd seen (themselves) in line for another ride again. Then, Ro had said that once all of the agents were on one half of the park they'd make a break for the exit. That way, if someone did see them as the parade was going through, the agents would have a hard time getting across the street to even follow them!

Now that he thought about their plan, it didn't sound so plausible anymore. Maybe it was just the excitement of hearing it for the first time or maybe it was because they had a better plan now, but whatever the reason, thinking that Bennet would have allowed all of his agents to gather on one area of the park didn't sound so wise anymore. No matter, they were going with this plan and so he shouldn't dwell on it.

As he entered the costume room for the second time he was surprised to see that it was fairly emptied. He didn't see Ro so he would assume that she was with the other princesses and parade staff. No, he wasn't assuming-- he was praying, praying that that's where she was and that she hadn't been taken by the agents the moment he let her out of his sight.

It was going to be hard to forgive himself for making her go through this parade, without knowing anything about the dance routine… he didn't know if he'd ever be able to forgive himself if she ever was captured. And, he actually did feel bad about cutting her shirt up.

The cast member who was checking out costumes looked rather tired, but as he did this every day, it was just something that someone got used to with time. The other cast member in the back was busy preparing the room for when the parade would be over in less than a half hour and they'd have to re hang and check in all of the costumes again.

Zee looked around quickly. No one was looking. He quickly holomorphed into one of the parade dispatchers. He then hurried over to the guy who'd been handing out costumes. "What character costumes do you have back there that aren't usually n this parade?" he asked quickly.

The cast member glanced behind him then asked then began to list the costumes. It was a nice list, but it needed refinement. "Any of those non-face characters?" he asked quickly.

Sensing that something wasn't right anymore, the cast member asked, "Is something wrong?"

Zee thought of one of the characters he'd seen wandering around, then quickly scanned the inventory of costumes behind the counter. He had to pick a costume that there only appeared to be one of. He also had to pick a costume from a float near the end of the parade as he'd need time to change into it. It also had to be a costume that didn't sound too important or noticeable. "It was a complete accident, but someone accidentally backed up a cart on the crocodile's tail and not realizing that he was tied down he started walking and ripped the tail completely off!" Zee began to weave the sad tale.

The cast member looked completely horrified. He was doing a good job then. "They were trying to tape it back on, but it's just not covering."

"It's a foam rubber costume, of course tape isn't going to work." Zee knew that, but being a parade dispatcher it wasn't his job to know how to fix costumes.

"Do you have another costume?"

"Not another crocodile," the cast member replied, knowing from memory that there was only one costume, thus making the tale even more tragic. And knowing that the crocodile played a minor part in the parade he was tempted to just tell the dispatcher to tell the guy to bring the costume back, but he couldn't' verify if it really was an important part or not so he'd just have to suggest the next best alternative, "I have a lizard costume…" the cast member said, checking behind him to see if it was sill there. "It' a 5'9"-6;-2" range costume which was what the crocodile was…"

"Perfect, just hurry," Zee increased the tension of the situation.

"Cindy, get the lizard costume!" he called to the back.

He then handed the costume over to Zee without even bothering to ask for an ID or anything. With the parade supposedly having started already, there wasn't any time to second guess. He'd just have to make a second entry that one of the parade dispatchers came and got the lizard costume. He'd also have to start filling out the paperwork for the damaged crocodile costume. What a day.

Zee took the costume and ran with it until he found a place where no one would see him put it on. He would use Ro's clothes as padding around the belly area once he got in. He quickly unzipped the back and stepped into it. He actually had to shrink his body a few inches to fit inside of it comfortably. Then, after he put the head on he found that it was near impossible to see out of it. He extended his neck a few centimeter until his eye line was lined up with the eye holes. He then ran out of the costume building and to the open area just behind the gate where the parade floats were lined up, ready to go. The floats just seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Far down near the entrance to the park he could see a large warehouse-type building. Rather than having the floats housed near the beginning of the parade they housed them at the end of the parade so that they could make sure everything was working properly in a mini-test run up to the front of the parade.

Most of the characters from the costume building had already taken their places on their corresponding floats, but there were still some chracters who were not riding on any of the floats. Zee walked over to join a small group of characters that were just filler between floats.

This was where he was supposed to be with Ro. But, she was up ahead in the line up. He could even see her rehearsing some small dance moves with her partner. Maybe they'd realized that she didn't know what she was doing and that it was too late to get someone else dressed up. Or maybe she'd just asked if he'd go through it with her because she knew she didn't know what she was doing? If only they'd had more time… He would have practiced the dance steps with her until she started stepping on his feet to tell him that she'd had enough…

"Good luck Ro," he whispered inside his lizard head. He wished he could take it off so she could see that he was right behind her and that he hadn't left her entirely, because even from afar, he could see she was looking for him. Her eyes kept on wandering around, even though she knew that if he were in disguise she'd never recognize him.

He was almost jealous that he couldn't be Michael. He was sure she'd be a lot more comfortable if he was guiding her through the parade rather than leaving her off on her own.

"Think you got it now?" her partner asked her.

"Yeah thanks. It's just that I don't usually do Lina's character… My nervousness is making me forget the steps."

"What characters do you usually do then?"

"Costume characters," Ro said quickly.

"Really? So when did you decide to audition for a face character?"

"When I got tired of being scanned like a household item at the superstore," Ro said, referring to how the gray t-shirts were scanned out.

Derick laughed. He'd introduced himself as they hadn't performed together before. "I used to do the characters with the small legs, like any of the bug or monkey costumes until I grew out of the height range. Now I do any of the gargoyles or the evil vizier…"

"Is there a character that you liked being best?"

"King John, because he's just a head and a robe. Never got overheated when I was him, which was what made me decide I wanted to be a face character. Our costumes are so much more comfortable and less hot…" Derick then started going off on which costumes the other cast members liked most and why and which ones they liked least.

She couldn't help but think of Zee. Where was he? She was sure he was close by, but it bothered her that she just didn't know how close by he really was. She'd just have to hope that he found her by the time they got to the end of the parade.

The recorded announcer started speaking. This was it, the parade was starting!!! The floats ahead of them were moving so slowly! It was killing her to be stuck waiting. She just wanted to get this over with! Part of the reason things were taking so long to get moving was that they had to leave a large space in front of them so that they wouldn't run over the dancers in front of them if they had any pauses in their routine.

"Good luck everyone!" one of the parade dispatchers said as they were exiting through the gate. Was it Zee? No, if it was Zee he'd have winked at her or something as she walked by.

While a few of the princesses in front of her seemed to laugh at the idea of needing luck as they did this nearly every single day, Ro was grateful for it. She needed it.

By the second time the princesses started their routine over again she'd caught onto it decently enough that she actually did look like she knew what she was doing. And as long as she smiled, everyone else would believe that she knew that she was doing. Heck, it didn't matter if she just walked down the street. Everyone adored her because of her hair color and her wonderful dress. She was Princess Lina, and that's all that mattered.

The crowd was convinced that she was a princess, and so were the agents! Ro saw several of them with their holoviewers out, watching the parade, but none of them seemed to pay any particular notice to her. And why would they? They'd be expecting them to be wearing holographic costumes rather than the park's costumes. Or, they'd be expecting to see her somewhere other than as one of the main characters in the parade. It still worried her though that she didn't know where Zee was. Up until the parade had stepped off she'd been hoping that he would suddenly come up with some excuse for him to take Derick's place, but upon seeing the agents with their holoviewers, there wouldn't have been any way for him to not be discovered unless he was fully covered.

She'd figured it out now. He had to be wearing one of the character costumes. She felt a little better, but still not as good as if she'd actually seen him put it on. It just made smiling a little easier.

She even began to wave with her free hand when she had the free moment. It was amazing how all of these little girls adored her. She, the one who wasn't the real hero the fairy tale--or, was she? Originally she'd seen Michael to be the hero because of his humble, unselfish heart, but while that was true and while those qualities were definitely admirable, wasn't Michael the one who was willing to carelessly throw his life away because he wasn't willing to take someone else out of their comfort zone? Maybe it was Lina who was the hero of the tale? It was Lina who decided that there was something more important to life than just dancing all night long and getting new shoes every day. Lina was the only princess who saw that they were in an endless cycle where they were never able to truly love their dancing partners because of the enchantment and that the only way to move on was to give up something important in order to gain something more important… Michael loved Lina, but rather than acting on his love he was actually willing to give it up for what would have been a false love, for how could the princesses ever love someone whom they felt content to leave captive in an enchanted castle? When Lina realized that she loved Michael in return she realized that she'd have to do more than just admit her love. She'd have to give up their precious secret. But, she knew that in the end, it would be worth it. And, she was right.

Having been so lost in her thoughts it shocked Ro to find that they were at the end of the parade and were heading back into the gate. She looked to see if anyone was unsuspectingly loitering around the area for no apparent reason, but no one appeared to just be waiting for her to be finished. Zee had to be behind her.

Safely out of guest viewing area, she could glance backwards over her shoulder. There was a group of characters walking around between two of the floats a couple of floats down. There… He was in the group, the tall lizard. Its movements were so rehearsed, so obviously practiced and mimicked. It didn't have the sporadic nature of the other characters. That was Zee alright. She could breathe again. She let out a long sigh of relief.

"You did well. You missed a couple of steps at the beginning, but after that you did much better."

"Thanks." She really meant it. It was nice to hear that she hadn't completely ruined things.

There were people up ahead handing out water bottles. Ro couldn't believe it. They'd been walking for what, fifteen minutes tops? And they were handing out free water for that? Oh well. These people deserve it. After going through all of this prep work for such a short performance they deserved to have some free water.

Everyone began to disperse; most of the people were still heading back towards the costume building, except for those people who were still on their floats and had to have their safety hooks detached. They'd have to catch up with later. Rather than heading back with the other characters she'd just wait here for Zee. Derick didn't bother to wait for her but began walking back to the costume room to return his costume. It so, was not worth the trouble to do this every two hours in her opinion.

There was Ro. She was thankfully waiting off to the side for him. "You have a fun time?" she asked, as he was still approaching her.

"You knew it was me?" he asked, removing the head.

"When you've been with someone as long as we've been together, it becomes easy to spot the other, no matter what they look like. But anyway, we gotta get these things off and get out of here!" Ro said, suddenly noticing a group of people off in the distance quickly coming towards them. Two of the people in the group had shining blonde hair which easily caught the sun's light, and her attention. Apparently the Rachel and the real back-up met each other in the break room and had alerted someone to this matter.

"Over there," Zee said pointing towards a large dumpster they could quickly change behind.

"You got a new shirt for me?" she asked as she began to undo the lacings that would release her from her costume.

"I do indeed," he replied. He unzipped his costume and pulled out her jeans, the bracelet, her ripped shirt, and one of the gray work-out shirts.

"How resourceful…" she said, disgustedly looking at the shirt. Who knew how many people had sweat in it before?

"Actually, someone had just left it lying around on the floor…"

She was undressed then dressed again in under a minute. Getting the wig off had been the hardest part because there were so many bobby pins holding it on. She was sure that they didn't even get half of the bobby pins out of her hair, but the wig was off, and that was all that mattered.

"We should return these," he commented.

"Just stuff it in the lizard head, then hand it to one of those guys," Ro said, pointing to a line of people who were accepting mascot heads and costume props. He did just that. And before the person could comment on why the head was so heavy or why they were handing them entire costumes they'd disappeared into the crowd, and were on their way over to the employee exit.

"Hold up," Zee cautioned Ro as they approached the exit. He could see the security checkpoint that Alicia had mentioned. The checkpoint was a large wooden gate that could be opened to let a vehicle through, in addition to a small side gate for pedestrian access. Standing outside of the shack were two guys. One was dressed as a park employee, the other as an agent. Coincidentally the park employee's name was Brandon. And while the other agent didn't have a name tag, Zee and Ro both immediately recognized him to be West by his red-orange hair, and clueless expression. "This is going to work out really nicely," Zee smiled. "You're going to need the bracelet," he informed her then looked for a private area to change his hologram.

"Hold it right there!" West pointed his stunner at the young blonde woman who was coming out of the gate.

"Oh come on, not this again!" Alicia complained. "Didn't you give me enough trouble on the way in?"

"It's for your own safety," West began to insist, slowing bringing his holoviewers out of his jacket pocket.

Alicia's face turned sour. She took a bold step toward West, pointing her finger daringly in his face. "You pull that X-ray crud on me again, pervert, and I'm taking this harassment straight to your superior!"

Her forcefulness caused West to take a step back, but Alicia continued to scold him. "And when I get done talking with him, you're not even going to be allowed to look through a home-made toilet paper tube-kaleidoscope!"

West bit his lower lip nervously. Technically he wasn't even supposed to be patrolling at this checkpoint. He'd just gotten bored and had made up the idea himself that it would be beneficial if he were to help this guard out in watching the exit. Things might not go over to well with Agent Bennet if this girl were to tell someone that he harassing her again… especially after making her prove on the way in that she wasn't Zeta's accomplice on the way in.

"Sorry… I guess I didn't recognize you again." It would be best if he did just let her go through and not bother her again.

"Didn't recognize me! I just came through here! With an attention span like that, how did you ever manage to get out of the third grade?!"

"Sorry for the trouble, go ahead," Brandon apologized on behalf of the agent, as the agent didn't appear to be able to get himself out of the mess he'd gotten himself into. Bradon could see that if he didn't intervene, Alicia would just continue to grill the helpless agent-- like a weenie for a fourth of July barbeque.

He buzzed Alicia through the gate so she could go home.

"Thanks, you have a good evening," Alicia said politely, but shortly to Brandon, then stormed off toward the parking lot.

It was only a couple seconds later that a tall agent came rushing out of the exit gate crying, "Which way did she go?"

"Who?" West asked.

"The synthoid!"

West's face went pale. "That washim?"

"Alicia just came through here," Brandon provided, though he wasn't sure if it was what the agent wanted to hear.

"Just great!" the agent muttered.

"I'll find him!" West shouted, eager to redeem himself. He'd catch Zeta, and he'd find a way to show him for making a fool of himself!

"No!" the agent stopped him. "They've got the girl, and they need your help!"

"What should I do?" Brandon asked nervously. The whole thought of a real terrorist threat made him anxious, and the though that he might actually have to do something that might endanger his life did generate a little fear.

"Stay here at the gate. Don't let ANYONE pass through until I come back!"

Unfortunately for anyone else who was getting off of work at this time, they were going to have to wait until someone explained to Brandon that he'd been tricked, and that the agent who'd told him not to open the gate for anyone, was never coming back.

"Psst!" Zee heard someone hiss from behind one of the vehicles in the parking lot.

"Good to see you made it out fine," she smiled at the agent.

"You ready to go?" he asked her.

"Yeah, but we need to get another car."

"Are the agents watching it?"

"No, but even though I remembered the general area that we parked it in, I have no clue where it is."

While he did know exactly where their car was parked, Bennet also probably had found where it was parked by now and had tagged it or marked it somehow.

"We can take a cab." he suggested, then joked sarcastically by trying to sound disappointed, "even though I know that how much it bothers you to pay 25 cents every three seconds to take a cab…"

"Someone's got to keep them in business," Ro smiled, and removed the bracelet. Riding in taxi's was something that she grew to like after getting over the expensive fee.

"Where did you get those?" someone asked coldly. The person holding the lizard head was surprised by the strange uniform of the agent who was addressing her and was almost about to reply with some sarcastic comment, such as that it was her job to collect costumes, but the agent's sour face deterred her from doing so.

"Someone just handed it all to me," she answered.

"Who did? Where are they?" the head of the costume department asked. She was the one who had realized to call in the agents when she'd been approached by Rachel and Alicia as they were confused about the mixed messages that they'd been receiving as to who the stranger was playing Lina in the parade was.

"They went off…" the girl started speaking, but as she looked around, she didn't see either of them. "… I don't see them…" she tried to explain.

"What did they look like?" the agent asked.

"It was a blonde girl, and one of the dressers…"

"Can you tell me which direction you think they were heading?"

"No, I'm sorry, I can't," the girl apologized.

"Just great," the agent muttered, turning on his radio to give Bennet the bad news. "Bennet, this is James. They're gone."

"Which way did they go?" Bennet's angry, and disappointed voice replied.

"No one knows."

Bennet sighed. "Look around you and tell me if you see anywhere that you think they might have gone to next or where they might be hiding."

The agent looked around him, "I think I see where they went," he spoke into his receiver. "I'll go and check it out."

But, he found that as he turned around he didn't have to go anywhere. West had found him and had just the information that they needed. He didn't need to ask West why he'd left his post from the van, but figured things out well enough when he started accusing Alicia of being a fraud.

Bennet had only heard the beginning of the conversation and already he knew that the mission had failed. He clenched his receiver tightly, but rather than throwing it on the floor in his anger her shoved it into Rush's hands and began to make his way out of the park and back to the security office. "Team, move out," he sighed. Zeta had gotten away, again. He had some agents stationed in the parking lot, but he didn't have that many as he'd placed most of his team members inside the park.

It was just too difficult, it was too hard. The park was just too big. Even with the extra help from the park's staff it was too much to find two people among the swarming masses. He didn't blame himself for this failure, and for once, he didn't blame West. His team had done everything he'd asked but it wasn't enough. He'd have to report to Lemack that even with all of the extra help they'd still been unsuccessful. It had been a long day, but it was going to be an even longer evening. The same report to be filed, the same admit of defeat. Just once, couldn't something go his way?

He could spend the rest of the day thinking about all the things that went wrong, or all the things that they could have done better. Such thoughts would cause him to remain awake all night long, and to even never sleep again! But such thoughts were unhealthy. They led to obsession which would only quicker lead to him going crazy or an untimely demise caused by stress. Still, he couldn't help but think about the possibilities. His mind kept dancing around the issue, but it always came down to one thing. If they were going to catch Zeta, they needed him to come to them. While Zeta was running, playing defensively, he always seemed to come out ahead. They needed to get him on their territory where they were stronger and had the advantage. Offensive tactics weren't working. They'd need to lure Zeta with bait. They'd need to set a trap for him. If they could get him to a place where they knew where all the hiding spots were, where they had the upper hand, then maybe they'd come out ahead for once.

However, plotting "traps" was scoundrel's work—not the work of a respectable government employee, or could it be? He'd have to think about the idea for a night or so and decide whether he wanted to hire out for such a strategic conniver, or whether his team could come up with something. Or… with his past history with the synthoid and with his extensive understanding of protocol, maybe he really could think of something himself…

"You know, Zee, I've been thinking," Ro commented, pulling her hair out of her mouth as it whipped around her face as Zee sped down the mag-way.

"Yes?" he asked.

"You know what you said—about finding those other scientists."

"The ones from the design team?" he clarified.

"I dunno, but I've been thinking… maybe it's not such a bad idea after all. I mean, we can't know for sure that they'd automatically turn you over to the feds or anything. Maybe some of them are closet pacifists and don't want to be making killer robots either? Even if they weren't, maybe one of them would just be sympathetic?"

"Ro, I think you were right the first time. I can't imagine any of them wanting to get involved with this."

"But they wouldn't have to do anything dangerous or illegal. Maybe they could do something as simple as just say that it is possible to build a conscience module, and that it's possible that Selig could have slipped it in during your construction."

"Ro, I appreciate the way you're…"

"Don't finish that sentence!" Ro stopped him. "If you never try, then you'll never know."

"But…"

"And don't finish that one either!"

He paused for a second to think things over. "So, where should we start?" he asked.

"You know, wasn't there a garden convention in town? You want to go and check it out? I think you'd make a really handsome gardener…"

"Maybe not this time. I don't think it's a good idea to hang around the area."

"Then you're probably not going to like my next suggestion either…"

"And what's that?"

"Did you know that there's an even bigger one of these things in Florida?"

Episode 6 Author's notes:

For the record: I have read several reasons as to why Sleeping Beauty's castle was actually closed. Some say it's because terrorists might see it as potential target icon, others say its because there was no video cameras inside the castle for security reasons. It is a possibility that they closed it because it wasn't handicap accessible. (A store in my area closed off its second floor because they didn't have an elevator that would make it handicap accessible. So now if you want something from the second floor you have to ask an associate to go look for you... ) The reason I'm leaning toward, was that they're too cheap to maintain it as they didn't think it was a very popular attraction. Over the years I've watched from when her foot was attached to when it had broken off and was glued back on, to when they finally left her a cripple rather than trying to fix the problem when it broke off again.

The castle was originally closed for "refurbishment" around Sept/Oct 2001, but when asked why it was taking so many years to reopen an official spokesperson danced around the topic saying it was "indefinite" as to when/if the castle would ever reopen. On a fairly trustworthy website I read that the castle would reopen in Oct of 2005 (which would only seem believable because it's the park's 100th anniversary), but I'm skeptical.

And, the thing about the toilet seat covers in the public restroom—it's true. I used to work as a day porter at Target, and was given the whole story from my manger. Keep in mind, the people who sued never asked for someone to lower the dispenser, but took it straight to court… We also had a restaurant in the surrounding area (Roy's Drive Thru) close because a disabled guest felt that they were discriminated against because some areas weren't handicap accessible. Since the restaurant couldn't afford to pay the large daily settlement fee each day that it was open without remodeling its grounds to be handicap accessible, and because it couldn't afford to do the remodeling, it closed. The person involved with the restaurant case is rumored to make his living from touring the country, looking for such lawsuits… Sickening, isn't it?


End file.
